A/N: the first I've been able to write since November. I swear that month stole all the thoughts and words in my head. I don't even know if I like this, but it is something. L.M.A. owns these two.
What makes you think I enjoy being led to the flood?
We've got another thing comin' undone.
- Runaway (The National)
She sits there and stares at his hand in her lap. His fingers are playing with the material against her knee, against her thigh almost, and she wonders if she should have let him take her hand.
It's comforting all the same, regardless of the colour of her face.
He doesn't mean anything by it, not this time. It's a great comfort to lean upon him even now, even after all the looks, all her sharp words. She's been trying to leave him behind for years, to leave him to his own devices, to leave him so he wouldn't care but she needs him now.
Her fingers reach across her knees and touch his hand.
"We can if you want?" Laurie's voice is low and she knows he has taken this as a sign to her near-agreement.
Jo shakes her head but tightens her grip on his hand. He doesn't sigh or say anything further but she can feel his eyes leave her form to stare at the path in front of them. It's a path she's walked every day of her life. It's a path she can see in her dreams, in her letters away-from-home. It's the path from the gate to the front door.
They're sitting on the door's stoop, the stone biting into the fabric of her skirt. There are ants by her shoes in a wavy line, making their way across the path looking for food. The world turns ever on. There are reminders everywhere. The flowers beside her face stink.
Laurie turns his hand in her lap, to take her fingers between his own.
"I was going to leave, myself." He admits quietly. Jo turns her head to look at him and sure enough his eyes are set on the gate. "It was two years ago," Laurie clarifies.
She doesn't know what to say really. Back then she thought that would have been the wisest, best thing for him to do but now – now she can't imagine how she would survive this without him.
Jo considers that she has come to rely too much upon him. It is dangerous to be so dependant on one person, she thinks.
"I'm glad you didn't." Jo confesses, just as quiet. He squeezes her hand and they return to silence.
A breeze passes through the front garden and Jo wonders what he thinks. She's sure he's forgiven her since all that business that seems so long ago. It was harder than either of them could have imagined. Harder for him to put it past them, to grasp onto their friendship and for that to be enough. It was harder for her to see him do it and to feel nothing but regret.
And now, this.
Their thumbs brush against each other.
"I –" he starts but she knows before he can make the words leave his mouth what it is he wants to say. Jo lowers her eyes to his shoulder and he purses his lips and looks a little ashamed of himself. Mostly, he looks frustrated. She doesn't know what is appropriate now. She wants to tell him she's sorry she can't make herself feel that way, and that she can't let him go now, no matter how much he needs it. Laurie needs her to leave when he gets that look. She knows it like she knows she needs him here just now.
She's not very fair to him.
"I'm glad you're here, Teddy." Jo tells him. "Without Beth –" The words stick in her throat, just as his did a moment ago and she shuts her eyes and concentrates on the feeling of his hand around hers.
"I know." Laurie says simply and she feels his hand leave hers, only to be replaced with an arm around her shoulder. It's a little better, feeling his warmth through the thinness of her spring dress.
"It's so much harder than I thought," she says quietly and sees him nod in the corner of her eye. "I thought I'd prepared myself but I guess… nothing ever could."
Laurie nods again and she wonders if he is thinking of the weeks leading up to her sister's slow death. It was only a month ago but the memories are fresh, embedded in her mind. Her sister's pale face, her small hands holding the quilt, spread out as though she was playing the piano. He doesn't say anything and Jo can't help but feel a little exposed for admitting that truth.
She hates to feel weak beside him, but she has learnt it is hard to help.
His mourning has felt so much more private than hers, Jo thinks. He has seen her cry at least a dozen times and she can hardly recall a time he has shed a tear. She thinks of the way his arms shook as he held her, walking away from the little marked grave beside the river. She just wants to feel equal, Jo tells herself but privately knows it is more than that.
Jo wants to be his rock as much as he is hers.
"I've been thinking of Amy." His arm is looser around her now and Jo leans back to see his face. He looks down at her, without turning his head and she does not know why she does not trust him quite so much when he does that. "Will she come back now do you think?"
"She is alone over there." Jo tucks her hands underneath her chin, her pointed elbows digging into her knees. "I can't imagine it must be easy with only Aunt March for comfort."
There is a long pause and Laurie's arm moves to the space behind her body and the door. He leans on his hand and she has only his proximity to keep warm with the breeze.
"And look at me," she says, her hands falling back to her knees. "Thinking of leaving."
Laurie nudges her with his shoulder and she looks back at him. He is almost smiling at her, after everything. "Like I said; we can if you want."
The smile she returns is every bit as half as his. It has been such a Jonah day and all she feels is sad and sorry and thoughtful and restless and it is all there, written over her face like her scratchings on a sheet of paper.
"You know I couldn't."
"I know you could," Laurie boldly returns and he is every inch the boy that got her into trouble nearly every day when she was seventeen.
"I couldn't leave Marmee, or Father. Not now." She says solemnly, just as ever the mature one between them.
He looks serious again and squints out at the sunshine across the lawn and lavender. "No." Laurie agrees.
This is enough self-pity Jo decides silently, and without explanation stands, dusting her skirts. Laurie spares a moment to stare up at her, that same squinting look as he watches her silhouette in the sun.
"Come on."
Jo begins her day again at three in the afternoon.