Disclaimer: Not mine.
"This is dreadful Teddy," Jo asserted, without looking up from the stack of papers which she was currently reading through.
"It is, isn't it?" His head was in his hands, and his thick hair fell over his face in a way that made him look truly pitiful, and made Jo want to laugh, given that the situation was far from grave.
It had been several weeks since he had first showed Jo the syllabus for the literature course that his college required of him that semester. At the time she had been burning with jealousy, for half of the poems on the page were ones that she had read and loved, and a few of them were even those that she could recite by heart. How unfair that young men were forced, sometimes unwittingly, into studying these works, when she knew them better than any of them, but could never study alongside them due to a mere accident of gender. She had spent much of that afternoon glowering at Laurie, until he'd admitted to her that the reputation of the professor teaching the class worried him, and asked her if she would look over his essays for him as he wrote them.
Of course, Jo was aware that helping Laurie with his essays meant that she would have to understand and know all of the materials that he was expected to understand and know. And thus, at her insistence, he had been coming home each weekend with piles upon piles of "critical analysis" which his professor had forced upon the him and the other hapless lads.
"I think that," Jo glanced at the front page of the voluminous work she was currently wading through, "Dr. G.L. Snider, whoever he is, has missed something very important about 'In Memoriam'."
"And what's that?" Laurie asked.
"It's a poem. A very, very sad poem. With words. For all that Dr. Snider goes on about rhyme and meter, he seems to have forgotten that they're composed out of anything other than nonsense syllables."
"I still have to write about it, and sound intelligent while doing so," Laurie pointed out. His attitude of abject misery had not changed, and this time Jo did laugh at him.
"Poor Teddy," She said, sitting down next to him as she rarely did these days. She even ruffled his hair, for he looked too dejected to ruin it by trying to ruffle hers back. "Your professor is an idiot, and you'll just have to carry on as best you can."
Jo's touch had more of an effect than she could have imagined, for Laurie perked up instantly, even taking her arm and tucking it under his own, in a way that Jo found worrisome, though she would not own why.
"You're right, of course," he said. "They change poetry into mathematical equations because we're there to study business, and having all the fun sucked out of everything is part and parcel with that line of learning. But I'll soldier through until I've graduated, married, and can finally live as I please."
Jo pushed him away at that, albeit playfully.
"You've no right whatsoever to be thinking of marriage yet," Jo said, "you're tall enough for it already, but you're too young yet. You'll choose badly if you don't wait for a few years at least."
She got up to go over to her bookshelf, only to have Laurie follow close behind her.
"What if I set my mind on a girl here and now, and still want the same one by the time I've graduated?" He asked. He was so close that Jo could feel his breath against her neck.
"You can't even keep up a consistent fashion from week to week. I'd be surprised if you keep interest in a single girl for more than a few days at a time."
Jo spun around, mostly to keep him from breathing on her, and immediately felt guilty for the stung look on his face. Perhaps she was taking her teasing a bit too far. "I only say it because I don't know any girl who is half good enough for you," she finished kindly.
"What if I did find the right girl, and soon?" Laurie asked.
"I'd give you leave to court her, as soon as you were finished with school. But you're talking about love almost as if you were a woman yourself. I'll tell you what, why don't you let me give you a good romantic book? That will give you vent for these silly notions of yours. You can give me your essay to write in return!"
Jo beamed at the last words. Even if the topics that Laurie's professor handed out were as dull as bones, there was something exciting about the prospect of writing a true college essay, and receiving a mark on it, just as Laurie and his fellows did. She figured she would never have another chance to try it, and it was more exciting than hearing Laurie go on about theoretical romances, at any rate.
"…What?" Laurie asked, sounding too incredulous for Jo's taste, "You want to write my essay?"
"Would you mind if I did?" She asked.
"No," he laughed, "but my professor would find out."
Jo leaned in closer to Laurie, though they had been close all ready. "No he won't," she whispered, as though that very professor were in the room and likely to hear them. "I've got enough old letters in your hand, and I can copy your writing from them, I'm sure of it."
He gestured towards the pile of critical analysis that Jo had abandoned, "It's not a matter of writing about the poems, you know. I have to write about that rot over there, and in the same style as well."
"I can do that," Jo said. "I like a challenge, and I'm sure I can. Just you watch and see."
To keep him from arguing, she searched for a book. The attic was no library, but as Jo spent quite a lot of time there, books were always in good supply and seemed to find their way into every nook and cranny of the room. The first one she saw was Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea, which lay on the floor beneath her writing desk. From what she could remember of it, it had a romance in it. She swept the book up, and handed it to Laurie.
"Here, you read this. It's got a love story to cure you of all your ills."
When Laurie next spoke to her, after examining the book front and back, the only response he got from Jo was an order to leave her alone, so that she could begin writing.
Some days later, Laurie lay sprawled against his bed at school, Toilers of the Sea propped against his knee as he turned the pages. He could hear some of his friends talking and laughing not far off, though his door was tightly shut. They'd invited him to play cards, but Laurie had declined.
The book was thicker and heavier than any brick Laurie had ever encountered, and the print was of the tiny, eye-crossing variety that professors loved, but he had never expected Jo to.
She had called the book romantic, and that was enough to make Laurie determined to read through it. After all, as far as he could tell, Jo found very few things romantic, and was unlikely to share what those things were to him any time soon. He viewed the book as a Rosetta Stone of sorts, a tool that would help him decipher the secret language of Jo March. He was even ready to take notes on it, if the need arose.
He turned avidly through the first thirty pages, before hitting his first obstacle.
The chapter was called "The Grass that Grows on the Isle of Guernsey", and as it turned out it was about just that…. Grass. Fat grass, skinny grass, green grass, and brown grass; grass on mountain tops, grass in valleys, sweet grass, and beach grass, and the brittle, dried up husks of grass that had died and ascended to a grassy heaven; every blade of grass on that forsaken island was described in loving detail for a good sixty-five pages. Laurie read each and every word, trying his best to relate them to Jo, and coming up short each and every time. What was she trying to tell him? He wasn't quite wishful or deluded enough to think that the chapter meant that she wished to tumble about in the grass with him, feeling the cool blades against her bare back… but knowing that and wishing he didn't was not enough to help him find a more feasible explanation.
Still, he soldiered on, and even found a reasonable plot for a page or two, before being stopped by…
A description of ship-building that was so immensely detailed that Laurie was convinced he could go out and built a ship of his own right then and there, if he chose.
A treatise on the Parisian sewer system.
A discussion of the differences in the usage of French pronouns between the two sides of Jersey island, which had apparently at one point been a French prison colony.
All this, and a dozen other things that no amount of convolution or creativity could help him relate to Jo.
Laurie would have given up at that point, and found something more interesting to do (his schoolwork for example, of which he always had copious amounts.), if not for the thought that he would certainly see Jo again in two weeks time, and he wanted to be able to talk about the book with her when he did. She'd given it to him, after all, and she was the sort who could illuminate the most boring of topics with her spark, her warmth, and her humor.
From that point on, Laurie did not try to use the book as an analysis of Jo's character (which he a knew very well even without Victor Hugo's illustrious help), or her desires when it came to lovering (which he feared would always confuse him, no matter what he did.). Instead, he tried to think about what Jo would say about each chapter, and found the novel fairly tolerable as a result.
Jo ran up to the gate as soon as she heard the approaching clatter of Laurie's carriage. She always felt unaccountably excited when he first came home, even if by the end of an entire weekend in his company she was often left wanting to throttle him.
Besides, she had something more to be excited about during this visit. Her essay… Teddy's essay really, for she'd written his name in bold lettering at the top of it, was finished, and it was two pages longer than the minimum requirement. She'd felt at times that she was composing a parody of all the literary criticism she'd had to read to prepare for it, but surely anyone stupid enough to assign such badly written trash would not be smart enough to catch on to her mockery of it.
She held the paper in her hands, and gave it over to Laurie before even opening the gate to let him in.
"I've finished it," Laurie announced, before she could open her mouth.
"That's funny. I'd meant to say exactly the same thing," Jo said, gesturing towards her essay, "but tell me, what have you finished exactly?"
"The book you gave me," He said, beaming. "Every word."
"Good for you, my boy," she said, ushering him into the March garden, "I tried to, ages ago, but I couldn't for the life of me get past that bit about the grass…"
Notes
Toilers of the Sea is a real novel by Victor Hugo. It's the only book of his I just haven't been able to get through. The grass chapter is real, but I made up the rest, because I never finished the book. Poor Victor Hugo is probably rolling over in his grave right now.
…As is Louisa May Alcott, and all of the March sisters, even though their graves are thoroughly fictional (The Marches, not Louisa). I've finished most of a bottle of wine during the course of writing this, and there's probably something in the Little Women rule book about not writing fic for the fandom while intoxicated. Waiting until tomorrow to post this would be the reasonable thing to do, but I'm in the mood for instant feedback, and so I'll post it now. By the way… feedback. I'd like some. In the form of reviews. Please?