Play the Love Away

Infection

She came as fast as she could.

Elise had spent the night in her own bedroom with Charlie, first providing a phony smile about how Louis had been so kind to her during their tea and then finally resulting in a sobbing fit about Gilbert's actions towards her. She couldn't understand him sometimes.

However, when Bash had beckoned, she took the carriage and Bash back to Gilbert's house and found ran inside without caring if Bash had fallen off the horse or not. She ran inside quickly and found him sitting in John's room with an empty medallion holder. His face was so beautifully broken with a tight jaw and melancholy eyes that were trying to harden so desperately.

Elise stepped closer and didn't say a word. His eyes slowly looked up at hers in complete despair, compelling her to pull his head into her stomach, placing a kiss on the top of his head. His arms immediately wrapped around her torso as she heard Bash and Mary's footsteps shadow away.

Neither spoke as Elise finally pulled away and brought him to his feet, closing the medallion holder and setting it on the bedside table. She then sat him down at the kitchen table and made him some tea before walking to check on Mary and Bash, who sat in the bedroom across from John's. They had been talking quietly with Mary threatening to cry. They looked expectantly at Elise.

She gave a side hug to Mary, "He'll be just fine. It's you that I am worried about. I know that your son has left a pretty poor impression, but I don't believe he is a bad person, and I know you know that as well. You are his mother and you will always love him as he does you. It was a spur of the moment and it must have been hard to see all of this." Mary nodded vigilantly as Elise tried a small smile. She then turned to Bash, "Don't base your opinion of him on this. And don't blame him for being angry."

Bash slowly nodded and thanked her quietly before she left the room and walked back over to Gilbert, who had finished his tea. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but he merely shook his head. He stood up and walked over to her frame in the doorway, which begrudgingly had to tilt upwards to meet his gaze. Although his apology had been written in his head, through and through, he couldn't find the words. But even before he could form anything, she hugged him. He was momentarily surprised but answered by wrapping his arms around her and just holding her.

~~~

Spring had finally beckoned itself away from the holding grasp of winter and here were the itching green leaves that danced in the wind and the flowers that potted themselves all around the fields in Avonlea.

As much as Elise loved winter, spring was such a beautiful scene. However, at the moment, she could not see it.

She had placed her attention on the raspberry pastries that were fresh out of the oven and the egg breakfast that she had prepared for the whole family inside the Blythe home.

Mary had taken sick soon after the incident with her son, something that none of them had any idea how to explain. Elise had eyed the cut on her hand, something she had also gotten in the excitement of her son's anger, but Elise was no doctor and she had little to no knowledge of medicine.

Gilbert hummed beside her, plating the eggs, bacon, potatoes, and pastries that Elise had whipped up that morning, which was not so different from every morning recently. All of her time had been spent at the Blythe home, as Bash and Gilbert were clearly lost in almost everything without Mary. She had been recently staying with Gilbert as Charlie had been taking frequent trips for work all around the country, Elise didn't mind.

While Elise and Gilbert worked like two oiled gears, the door opened to a smiling Sebastian, "Oh my goodness! It smells like spring and wellness in here. What's breakfast?"