A/N: A chance remark in an email - while I was trying to figure out the logistics of another story - led to this fic. (JWood201, thank you.) It's always the little throwaway remarks that bear the fruit :)

So this story is set in Season 1 (after The Matchmaker), when Gilligan and Mary Ann were still quite MAGGY in their approach to each other, ie: before those darn censors interrupted. Also because while I was writing it I pictured it in black and white rather than colour.

Sherwood Schwartz, thanks again for letting us borrow your characters that we love so much!

The One That Got Away

The Skipper and the Professor were fed up. They had been on the island now for almost a year with no sign of rescue. In the beginning it had seemed at times like an adventure, a dream they hadn't yet woken up from. There was still a feeling that if they clicked their heels together three times they'd wake up and find themselves back home in their beds. But that hadn't happened. As the months passed, they gradually came to the conclusion that they were, indeed, stranded.

And not only that, they were hungry.

"Any bright ideas?" the Skipper said, his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.

"No," the Professor sighed. "You?"

The Skipper shook his head. "You know I can't think on an empty stomach," he grumbled, at which point his stomach grumbled in agreement.

"Another banana?" The Professor picked up a sorry looking specimen from the top of the pile of untouched fruit sitting on a platter in the middle of the table.

"If I eat one more banana I'll turn into a banana," the Skipper muttered.

They stared morosely at the fruit.

After a while they heard the sounds of cheerful whistling and Gilligan appeared, sauntering off the lagoon path and into the clearing.

"Talking of bananas, here's one," the Skipper drawled.

Gilligan strode towards them. His hat was tilted at a rakish angle, his shoulders pulled back and his head held high. He looked extremely pleased with himself.

The Skipper and the Professor exchanged a puzzled look.

"What's he got to be so happy about?" the Skipper asked.

"I have no idea," the Professor replied, his forehead creasing into a thinking man's frown.

"Hi, Skipper! Hi, Professor!" Gilligan grinned.

"What bit you, the happy bug?" the Skipper demanded.

Gilligan stood by the table, looking proud as a peacock. "You could say that." He looked from one man to the other and smiled enigmatically.

"Well, I believe I just did say that," the Skipper said sarcastically. "What's gotten into you, little buddy? Why so happy?"

"Skipper," Gilligan said, "I just had the most wonderful experience of my whole, entire life." He placed his hands on the table, leaned forward and winked.

The Skipper's jaw dropped and the Professor's eyebrows flew upwards.

"You did?" the Skipper asked, incredulously.

"Uh-huh. And you know, I've heard stories and everything about how good it is, but until it actually happened to me I didn't believe them."

"What kind of stories, Gilligan?" The Professor looked as if he didn't dare ask the question.

"Stories about it being the best feeling in the world. How it changes a man's life. And how you can wait a long time but then suddenly the right one comes along, and bingo!" Gilligan smacked his hands together loudly on the word 'bingo', making the other two men almost fall off their seats. He grinned at their startled faces. "You get it? 'cause I sure got it. And there I was, thinking that I'd have to wait forever to land a beauty like that!" Grinning smugly, he pushed his hat even further back on his head and strutted off, whistling more cheerfully than ever.

The Skipper became aware that his mouth was still hanging open. "You don't think...?" he said softly, turning to gape at the Professor.

"I don't dare think," the Professor whispered, equally softly.

Several moments passed in thoughtful silence between the two men. And then Mary Ann appeared, skipping into the clearing from the exact same direction as Gilligan. She was smiling broadly- her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone. "Hi, Skipper! Hi, Professor!" she chirped, brightly.

The Skipper and the Professor greeted her with wordless nods.

"You boys won't believe what just happened!" Mary Ann clasped her hands under her chin and did a little happy jiggle on the spot. The Skipper and the Professor's eyes followed her as she and her beribboned pigtails and the pleated skirts of her perky gingham dress bounced up and down in front of them.

"Try us," the Skipper said, pasting on a fixed grin.

"Oh, it was the most incredible thing! I can't believe it happened! Oh, I'm quite the happiest girl in the whole world right now. And Gilligan is the most wonderful and marvellous boy. We did it, Skipper, Professor. We did it!" With that Mary Ann let out a high-pitched squeal and ran off after Gilligan, her pigtails streaming out behind her.

The Skipper had by now gone a very deep shade of crimson. "Please don't tell me they..."

The Professor gulped audibly. "Surely they wouldn't," he uttered. "I mean, I knew they liked each other, but..."

"Gilligan?" said the Skipper, finishing his sentence for him. "And Mary Ann?"

The Professor looked stumped. He scratched the back of his neck, as though trying to unlock some part of his brain that might hold all the answers. "Perhaps Mrs. Howell's attempt to matchmake them ended up having a lasting and subliminal effect," he mused.

"Sounds like it had more than just a subliminal effect, Professor!" the Skipper countered.

"I don't think we should jump to conclusions." The Professor got up from the table as soundlessly as possible. He gestured to the Skipper. "Come on."

They crept over to the Supply Hut where they could hear Gilligan and Mary Ann talking in low, yet excited voices. The Professor put his finger to his lips and the Skipper nodded. They crouched close together under the window and began listening.

"Oh, Gilligan, you were wonderful," came Mary Ann's awestruck tone.

"I did my best, Mary Ann," the first mate answered, modestly.

"You did more than your best. You were amazing. Incredible! Such stamina!"

The Skipper's mouth fell open again. He leaned against the Professor and the Professor nearly toppled over into the sand.

"You were pretty amazing yourself, Mary Ann. I couldn't have done what I did without you."

"Oh, Gilligan. You were the one who did all the work."

"You weren't exactly a slouch."

"I just held on as tightly as I could."

There was the sound of giggling.

"You sure do have a tight grip," Gilligan said. "For a girl."

The Skipper went purple and made a stifled noise as though he were going to choke. He almost crushed the Professor in his haste to get closer to the window.

"Well, I never had to hold onto anything so tightly before!" Mary Ann replied. "You're so energetic, Gilligan. I'm positively exhausted after all that wrestling around!"

"It was worth it though, wasn't it, Mary Ann? I mean, it was hard work but it was a lot of fun, too. Right?"

"Oh, Gilligan. It was so much fun and so very, very worth it. I mean, who knows when something like that might happen again?"

"It might happen again tomorrow," Gilligan replied in a manly tone. "Or even the next day, too. Now that we know we're good at it!"

"Oh, I do hope so! And we were good, weren't we?" There was a brief pause, and then, "oh, Gilligan. We've both been hungry for so long."

The Skipper gasped and put his hands quickly over his mouth.

Then Gilligan said, smugly, "Mary Ann, I bet you never saw anything so big in all your life."

The Skipper did a huge double take while the Professor went whiter than a piece of chalk.

"That's it! I can't listen to any more of this!" Skipper clambered inelegantly to his feet, pushing down on the Professor's shoulders so hard that his face almost went through the wall of the hut.

The Skipper wrenched the Supply Hut door open with an almighty crash and barged in. "What's the meaning of this, little buddy?" he bellowed, standing in the middle of the room like a commanding officer about to drag a quaking subordinate down to the brig. "If I find out you've been taking advantage of this poor, young..."

But instead of finding Gilligan and Mary Ann locked in the throes of a passionate embrace, he found the two youngest castaways innocently standing three feet apart from each other behind the table, upon which lay the biggest, fattest, sleekest, juiciest looking freshly caught tuna he'd ever seen.

"...fish?" he finished, weakly.

Gilligan and Mary Ann exchanged a look that suggested the Skipper had lost all of his remaining marbles.

"What's going on in here?" The Professor, having extracted his face from the depths of the palm frond wall, had decided to follow the Skipper into the hut using the more conventional route.

"It's a fish," the Skipper garbled.

"Of course it's a fish," Gilligan retorted. "What did you think it was, a coconut crème pie?"

"Are you all right, Skipper?" Mary Ann asked, concerned. "And you, Professor. You look a little pale."

"We thought...um. That is...the Professor thought..."

"Me?" exclaimed the Professor. "You were the one who..."

The two men fell silent and stood in the hut side by side like naughty schoolboys.

"They've been in the sun too long," Gilligan muttered.

"We were fishing down at the beach," Mary Ann said. "Gilligan hooked this monster and I helped him land it!" She started doing her little excited jig again. "It was so much fun, Skipper! I've never done anything so exciting since I used to help the cows give birth down on the farm!"

"So this is what our misunderstanding was all about," the Professor muttered, then realised he'd spoken aloud.

"What misunderstanding?" asked Mary Ann, fixing the Professor with a puzzled frown.

"Oh, nothing," the Professor said, quickly.

"No, Professor, tell me!" The farm girl placed her hands squarely on her hips. "What could you have possibly misunderstood?"

The Professor sighed. He knew there was no way he or the Skipper were going to get out of this.

"We, um, just happened to overhear you. Talking about 'the most wonderful experience of your lives', 'so glad it had finally happened', and so forth, et cetera."

"Et what?" said Gilligan.

"Et cetera," said the Professor. For once he was glad that Gilligan had butted in. "It means 'and the rest'."

Gilligan shook his head slowly at the Professor as though he were the teacher and the Professor were the unruly student.

Mary Ann's eyes widened like saucers as she finally understood what the Professor was getting at. "Professor! Skipper! I can't believe you two would think anything like that!" she said, sternly. "Shame on you!"

"We're sorry, Mary Ann," said the Skipper, then quickly changed the subject. "Boy, that sure is a big fish you caught, Gilligan. Are we having it for supper?"

"I don't know if you deserve any supper," Mary Ann scolded.

"What's going on?" said Gilligan, still puzzling over the meaning of 'et cetera'.

Mary Ann pointed at the Professor accusingly. "They thought we were talking about something else."

"Something else like what?"

"Like nothing, little buddy!" The Skipper back pedalled with an ingratiating grin. "Boy oh boy, we're both extremely impressed with the size of this beautiful fish you caught! Aren't we, Professor?"

The Professor nodded, smiling inanely.

"Sure is a big one, huh, Skipper? Should feed us for a few days, at least." Gilligan ran his hand almost lovingly over the moist flanks of the monstrous tuna then gave it a light, playful slap. "He put up a good fight, too. But we were stronger! You shoulda seen us, Skipper. Me and Mary Ann had our hands so tightly around that pole, both of us pulling and pulling..."

The Professor coughed loudly.

"Well, we've kept you talking long enough," the Skipper blustered, heading for the door. "Come along, Professor. No doubt they'll want to get that thing cleaned and filleted ready for dinner! You did a great job there, Gilligan, Mary Ann. But now we really must be going!" He and the Professor almost fell over each other in their hurry to escape from the hut.

"What was that all about?" Gilligan asked after the two men had left, getting stuck in the doorway for a couple of seconds before pushing themselves free and running off in two different directions.

"Never mind, Gilligan. Let's just say they didn't think we were fishing."

"What did they think we were doing? Dancing?"

"You could put it like that."

Gilligan shrugged. "Well, whatever they thought, we're sure gonna have a feast tonight, huh, Mary Ann. This fish sure is a beauty."

Mary Ann watched Gilligan run his hands tenderly over the meaty sides of the tuna with a look on his face that could only be described as rapture. She watched his fingers press gently into the tuna's flesh and she watched him lift and stroke the underside of its fin with the briefest touch of his fingertips. She didn't know why, but she suddenly found herself planning what she was going to give him for dessert. After all, she thought he deserved it for all the work he'd put in that morning.

"Gilligan?" She clasped her hands shyly behind her back and swung her hips from side to side. "How would you like an extra slice of pie later?"

"An extra slice of pie?" Gilligan stopped examining the fish and turned to Mary Ann with a look of undisguised delight.

"An extra slice of pie," Mary Ann nodded.

Gilligan licked his lips greedily. "You know how much I love an extra slice of pie."

"I know, Gilligan. That's why I only give it to you, and you alone."

"Boy, Mary Ann!" Gilligan grinned. "I sure can't wait for that extra slice of pie!"

"And if you're very good," said Mary Ann, "I'll even let you lick the pie plate clean."

Outside the hut, under the window where he had returned to crouch on all fours, the Skipper gasped out loud and clutched his hat. He went every conceivable shade of red and purple.

And then he fainted.

END