It was late, but not terribly so. The hour when most of the world, including Marilla, had long since surrendered to sleep, and only the moon kept vigil with the truly stubborn.

The candle on the nightstand had burned down halfway. Its soft golden flame leaned toward the pages she held open, flickering as though the story itself were alive. She was in the final chapter, the one where the heroine must decide between two things—freedom or love—and naturally, she had waited until the very last minute to find out which it would be.

And then came the tap.

Light, almost hesitant. A pebble against glass.

She paused.

Another tap followed, quick and deliberate.

She frowned, half-expecting Anne to come barreling in, hair wild, whispering some nonsense about ghosts or pirates or inspiration striking in the middle of the night again. But the room next door remained silent.

Setting her book aside, she rose carefully and crossed the floor. The boards creaked beneath her feet, the wind tugged gently at the curtains, and as she parted them, her heart gave a strange sort of jump.

Gilbert Blythe stood in the yard below, a handful of pebbles still in one hand, his other shielding his eyes as he looked up.

She blinked, certain this must be some ridiculous mistake. He had the wrong window. It must be Anne he wanted. It was always Anne.

She cracked open the sash and leaned out, whispering sharply, “She’s next door, you know.”

Gilbert blinked, then smiled—wide, sheepish, and utterly unrepentant.

“I know,” he said.

There was a pause.

"...Then what are you doing here?”

“I was hoping you’d ask me that,” he said, already walking toward the trellis. “Because now I have an excuse to answer.”

She gawked at him, watching in disbelief as he started to climb the narrow wooden lattice, hands steady, boots finding confident purchase as though this were something he did often.

“Gilbert Blythe!” she hissed, her voice an urgent whisper. “Are you mad?”

“A little,” he said easily, hoisting himself up to her window ledge. “But mostly determined.”

She stepped back as he swung a leg through and landed with a soft thud on her floor. He brushed a leaf from his coat, took in her astonished expression, and gave the sort of smile that had likely worked on every girl in Avonlea except her.

Until now, perhaps.

“You can’t just climb through windows,” she said.

“You’d be surprised how few opportunities I get to speak with you when it’s not in Anne’s shadow,” he replied, the playfulness in his tone not quite masking something more serious beneath.

She folded her arms. “You came to wake me up just to talk?”

“I didn’t think you’d be asleep,” he admitted, eyeing the candle and book. “I thought you’d be doing something quiet and bookish and entirely you—which, if I may say, is endlessly more interesting than being shouted at about the merits of Byron over Shelley.”

She arched a brow. “Are you implying my sister isn’t endlessly interesting?”

Gilbert raised both hands in mock surrender. “Far be it from me to disparage Anne. I value my life. But she’s not the one I—” he stopped short, looked down, rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s not the one I think about when I walk home from school.”

The silence stretched between them.

The candlelight flickered over his profile—his jaw, his collarbone, the damp wind-tousled curl behind his ear.

She cleared her throat. “So… this is a romantic ambush, is it?”

“I tried talking to you, you know,” he said, half-defensive, half-laughing. “I’ve said good morning to you every day for three years. You never say it back.”

She blinked. “That’s because Anne answers for both of us.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I never get to see you without her stepping between. Like some very poetic and redheaded border guard.”