I love Little Women. Except, of course, for the end pairings. Whenever I read it, I end up chucking the book across the room or into the trash or something. Laurie is so on the rebound when he marries Amy. Laurie/Jo is destiny. Loff. So I saw the old movie on TV last night on TCM, and I got absolutely fed up with it, and I had to rewrite it the endings. This takes place right after Little Women, and follows all the canon up to that point. I do ignore the sequels, though, because I hate them. So hopefully you all forgive me for that. It opens up with Laurie/Amy and Jo/Fritz, but never fear, it ends with our favorite couple together. As if there was any other way.
Now that I have that lengthy AN out of the way...I don't own Little Women. Or Laurie/Jo would have been canon from the start, and there would be no need for fics of this sort. Anyway. Hope you enjoy!
Laurie knew that she was beautiful.
Her hair was bright and soft, curling gently down to her shoulders. Her eyes were blue and when she looked at him, he knew she loved him. She was petite and fine and everything a wife should be.
She swept around the house in a daze, planning parties and balls and buying gowns for herself and uncomfortable suits for him. She was elegant and graceful and loved society.
She was always wide awake at night, when he was tired and would have liked to sleep. She stroked his hair and her fingertips brushed his earlobe. "What are you thinking, Teddy?" she asked.
Jo's name for him sounded wrong coming from her, and he felt his heart tighten, a little.
"Nothing," he said.
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It wasn't as though he never saw Jo, anymore. Everyone gathered at the March's house for Christmas. But he had Amy clutching his arm, and she had Bhaer, and somewhere along the way things had changed.
He watched her reading some story she had written to Meg and John. She swung her arms violently, and her voice was loud and happy, and she didn't even notice him watching her.
He touched Amy's hand. "I think I'll go outside for a bit," he said. "Get a breath of fresh air." She was fawning over Demi and Daisy, and hardly heard him. He grabbed his hat as he headed out the door.
It was cold outside; snow was falling lightly. The ground was already dusted, and light from inside made the ground glitter. He felt like he was a little boy again, looking in on what he could never have.
He heard the door open behind him, and stilled. Light, crunching footsteps. A hand on his shoulder. "Hello, Teddy dear," Jo said. "What are you doing out here, all alone in the cold?"
He closed his eyes briefly before he turned to face her. Her hand fell to his, and they were cold. "I needed a minute alone," he said.
She looked concerned. "Do you want me to go?"
He caught her wrist as she backed away. "No," he said. "Stay."
She smiled beatifically, and he held out his arm for her to take. They set off down the path to the road quietly. There was snow in Jo's hair, Laurie noticed distantly.
"It's awfully cold," Jo burst out suddenly. "I wish either of us had thought to bring a coat."
Laurie grinned and plunked his hat onto her head. "There," he said. "Now are you warm enough to talk to me?"
Jo laughed. "I'm never too cold to talk to you, Teddy," she said. "Only everything's so busy, you know, I feel like we haven't talked in ages. So. You must tell me absolutely everything. How do you and Amy like the new house?"
He looked at the warm, bustling house they were leaving, and thought of his own. Cold and far too big and empty, with Amy around every corner rearranging furniture and picking new curtains. He hadn't expected to live like this.
But Jo was watching him expectantly, and her fingers were warm on his arm. "It's wonderful," he said. "Only I wish we could see you more often," he admitted. "I'm not used to not having Jo March around to tease."
She laughed softly. "Oh, I know what you mean," she said wistfully. "Don't you ever wish that things were exactly the same as they always were? Everything's so different, don't you think?"
He thought of himself as a lovesick young teenager, penning secret (dreadful) love verses to Josephine March.
"Not everything's different," he said.
"No," she agreed. "After all, you are still my Teddy."
"And you are still my Jo."
The house was far behind them, after all. It was easy to pretend that there were not two people inside that had far greater claims on them than they had on each other.
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Amy absolutely hated being pregnant.
"Look at me!" she wailed. "I'm so fat, and my feet ache."
He didn't know what to do, exactly, but she looked like she was about to cry. He wanted her to be happy, but he couldn't muster up anything other than vague annoyance at her for not trying harder.
But she was his wife, and of course he loved her (of course), so he took her hand and helped her to bed, and brought her chocolate when she wanted, and didn't imagine what it would be like if it was Jo.
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He visited Jo once, while Amy was away.
It wasn't that he didn't like visiting with Amy. It was just that she commanded so much of her sister's attention that he sometimes felt that he might as well not have come.
He took the sleigh, because even though it was almost March there was still about a foot of snow on the ground. Besides, he liked listening to the way the runners cut through the soft ground and the way the ice muffled the horses' footsteps.
She answered the door immediately when he knocked, and threw her arms around him.
"Teddy!" she yelped excitedly, as he tried to recover his breath. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you. Fritz is gone this month, you know. Visiting family in Germany. And I've been so lonely without anyone to talk to and bother. I only wish you'd come sooner."
He laughed and eased her arms away from his neck. "I would have, only I didn't know you were alone," he said. "Poor Jo!"
She smiled and squeezed his hand, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the way his heart leapt when she looked at him like that.
She led him into the house. "Christopher Columbus!" she exclaimed. "You look positively frozen."
He allowed her to plunk him down by the fire.
"So how long has Professor Bhaer been away?" Laurie asked promptly.
"Oh, a few weeks now," she said. "He received word that his brother was ill, and he had to go. I would have thought Marmee would have told you! Maybe she doesn't want to bother Amy. How is she, now?"
"Oh, she's fine," he said easily. "She's excited for the baby, of course. She's spent hours getting the nursery ready."
Jo smiled indulgently. "That's our Amy." Laurie felt as if they were two parents discussing a wayward daughter.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I haven't been writing so much, lately," she confessed quietly. "It's so hard to keep house for two and still find time." He squeezed her hand tightly.
"Don't ever stop writing," he commanded fiercely. "You're brilliant, you know."
She laughed. "It's all castles in the air, Teddy, that's all. We're left with our choices, after all, and nothing to do but make the best of them."
He watched her carefully. "Would you change any choices, if you could?"
She looked steadily at him. "Yes, I think I might," she confessed. "But it's all over and done with. Would you change anything?"
"Yes, of course," he said abruptly. "Doesn't everybody have regrets?"
She didn't say anything, just pressed her face farther into his shoulder.
Laurie supposed he'd never been as imaginative as Jo. But it was so easy to imagine things right now.
This was his house, and she was his wife. He imagined they would stay up late, talking, and then he would fall asleep with his arms around her. He imagined he would wake up tomorrow morning and find her watching him; bright-eyed and mischievous.
He remembered Amy, placing vases of flowers on table and brushing invisible dust off of windowsills.
He clenched his eyes shut and tried to imagine that he wasn't in love with Josephine March.
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The baby came too early.
Perhaps it would have been better if it never had come. It was a girl, bald and fragile and he imagined that she would crumple if he dropped her.
She was small and crimson. He could see the veins through her skin, and she cried so softly.
The baby died in his arms four hours after being born.
And Amy wouldn't stop bleeding.
Meg and Jo and Marmee were all there, and they crooned over her, their littlest, their baby. Her face was pale and damp and her eyes wouldn't open. Jo raced back and forth from the room to change the bloody sheets. He stood in the background and watched, feeling entirely helpless. John took the dead baby girl from his arms and placed her in the cradle she might have slept in, had she lived.
Amy was breathing shallowly. Laurie listened to it over the buzz of speech and tears, because that meant she was still alive.
In and out, chest up and down. He touched her wrist and felt her pulse beating much too quickly.
She was still bleeding and breathing and pulsing with life.
And then she wasn't.
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Jo and Meg and John stayed with him after everything was over. Bhaer was still in Germany with his brother, and Demi and Daisy had gone home with the Marches.
They all stayed up late, huddled around the furniture. Meg was wrapped in John's arms, but both Laurie and Jo sat isolated on opposite ends of the room. Murmured memories were shared, but it wasn't so much the words as the sound of voices that kept Laurie warm.
Later, after Meg and John had gone to bed, Jo came across the room to him and wrapped her arms around him.
"Teddy," she whispered into his neck. "Teddy, I can't do this anymore. Amy was so little."
He stroked her hair softly. "You'll always have me, Jo, dear," he promised. She was crying into her neck, and was so still, and cold, that he wondered for a moment if they weren't both dead, and everything was over.
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He had never wanted Amy dead. He had regretted marrying her almost as soon as he'd done it; he'd wished he'd never met her; he'd wished she'd stayed as just Jo's little sister forever. But she was, perhaps, the only one who had loved him—Jo didn't, certainly.
And he'd never wanted her dead.
It didn't mean Jo was his.
It just meant that he had nothing, now.
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They had two weeks.
Jo was the only one to stay in the house with him. And sometimes, early in the morning or late in the evening, he could imagine reality had deserted them, and they were just floating in a castle in the air.
Jo was as brilliant as he'd remembered her. She spun fanciful tales and acted them out with him. She spent hours locked up by herself writing about secret dreams and memories. She wept on his shoulder with a grief that he knew he should have been feeling. She was incandescent, she was shining, she was Jo.
He was in love with her.
His wife had died a week ago.
He had always loved her.
It was sunny when they buried Amy. She had the baby clutched in her arms; both of them dressed in pure white, with roses draped across both of them. She was sleeping, only sleeping, except she was far too pale. Her curls shone in the sun, and she was the goddesses she was always trying to paint.
Laurie listened to sobs around him, and felt numb.
After the burial, Laurie waited with Jo by the grave. They were the last two there. Jo stared at the mound of dirt covering Amy and all of Amy's dreams, and clenched her fists. Laurie touched her shoulder and she flinched away, then leaned into his touch.
It started to rain. Jo ran.
Laurie chased her, as she must have known he would. She was fast, but his legs were longer, and he finally caught up with her in the middle of a dirt country road. It was April, and tulips were pushing brightly colored heads up through the dirt.
He caught her shoulder, and she whirled around. Her face was wild with exertion, and her hair flew in all directions.
"Jo," he began.
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.
Just as quickly, she fell away from him. They stood breathless in the rain, drenched and dizzy and half-unaware of what they were doing.
He touched her hand and forgot the fact that two weeks ago he had been preparing to be a father to someone else's baby. He forgot the fact that his wife—her sister—was newly buried not two miles away.
She furiously wiped tears away with the back of her hand. "I'm so sorry," she said.
She ran again, and it was ages before he thought to follow.
By that time, it was far too late.
By the time he arrived home, she had packed up her things and left him alone.
Amy had been dead for two weeks.
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She would not see him.
Everyday for the next two weeks, he came to her door and knocked for ages. He sat on her steps and called her name. He heard her moving around inside and screamed in frustration. He cried a little, too.
Amy had been dead a month.
Jo was still married.
Mr. Bhaer answered the door, one morning. Laurie blinked, surprised. He had never thought the door would open.
"Ah, it is you," Mr. Bhaer said uncertainly. "I haf heard about your vife. I am so very sorry."
Laurie inclined his head.
"Please, von't you come in?" Mr. Bhaer said. His voice was deep and scratchy. Laurie followed him into the house.
"I haf actually been hoping that you vould come," Mr. Bhaer admitted softly. "My dear Jo is so very heart-broken over her sister. And I cannot think vhat I haf to do to help her. But, I know that you are her friend. Perhaps—perhaps you could help her."
And so Laurie allowed Mr. Bhaer to send him upstairs, to where Jo had penned herself in the attic. He let himself in silently, and watched her. Her back was to the door.
He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her neck. She stilled, then but didn't turn to face him.
"Teddy," she said flatly. "I don't want to see you."
He tightened his grip on her urgently, and she quivered. "But you must," he said.
She would not look him in the eye. "I think I'm in love with you, Teddy dear," she whispered, ashamed. "And so you understand. You must go."
He laughed and stroked her hair. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and was more beautiful than Amy ever was. "I love you, too, Jo," he told her, and she finally opened her eyes. He saw, at last, how scared she really was.
"Oh, I know you do," she said earnestly. "And that's why we mustn't do this. We both made choices we regret, perhaps, but we made them all the same. And we can't undo them. So we must bear our crosses, and I will be a good wife, and you will be lonely for a while but—I'm sure that you will find someone else, someday."
He shook his head frantically, and leaned towards her, but she pushed him away.
"I can hardly look at Fritz," she whispered. "And I used to think I loved him. But I'm so terribly selfish and bitter—his brother lived, you know. And I want him to be sad with me. I'm know I'm horrible, Teddy, so you needn't tell me. I only wish—well, it's too late to wish things, isn't it?"
"Jo," he said. "You can't do this."
"Oh, I can," she said firmly. "I'll do what I like with my life."
"Even waste it?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "If I must. Now, Teddy, I am going to ask you, as my dearest friend, and as someone who loves me, to leave now. I don't think I can do this."
He kissed her forehead and left without another word.
He heard her sob as he closed the door behind him.
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He decided to respect her wishes, this time, and doesn't try to see her again.
The house was lonely. He avoided the empty nursery, and tried not to remember that Amy was the one who picked out the different paintings and flowers around the house. It was easier than it sounded.
It was mid-June when he looked out the window and saw her standing at the foot of the walk leading up to the house, her hands behind her back, and watching the window wistfully. He hurried outside before she could disappear.
She was pale and thinner than he remembered her. Her hair was loose, and hung down her back in dark waves.
She blinked when she saw him. "Hello, Teddy," she said calmly.
"Jo," he said hoarsely. "I've missed you."
She stood stark still and he was afraid to touch her. "Yes—well, I've missed you, too," she said. "But everything I said before still stands. I can't see you, Teddy."
He hissed softly under his breath and kissed her before she could stop him. Her lips were soft under his, and her hands came up to play with her hair. He pulled away and listened to the sound of his name on her tongue.
"Leave him, Jo," he begged. "You need to be happy—you've already been so unhappy—it isn't fair, and you know it."
She gulped down a sob and looked away.
He swallowed too, before he continued, rubbing her palms with his thumbs and speaking softer than before. "And what about me?" he asked quietly. "I've never loved anyone but you, Jo—I never will, I can't, I've tried. I love you. Just you. And if you love me too—then we must."
She shook her head wildly. "I can't," she said. "My family will never forgive me. Divorce—such a disgrace! Against my family, and God—I couldn't. I've bound myself to Fritz, and I must stay with him."
He tilted her chin up and kissed her again. There were no protests, just a soft, surprised noise from the corner of her mouth.
"Where's the brave Jo March I used to know?" he teased gently, running a finger along the side of her face.
She seemed to wilt under his touch. "She is gone," she whispered. "Beaten down by time and death. I'm sorry."
"You are still my Jo," Laurie contradicted her automatically.
It was her turn to kiss him, and the small smile on her face seemed to confirm his belief.
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He did not see her again until about a month later. Early August, she showed up on his porch, tears pouring down her face.
"I've asked Fritz for a divorce," she said calmly, before collapsing into him, sobbing.
He stroked her hair, and murmured comforting sounds into her ear, and felt like dancing.
"He said yes," she finally continued, once she had regained some of her composure. "I think he was too shocked to do anything else. So he will arrange everything, then go back to Germany to be with his family. He's so good to me, really. I know he loves me. But I can't—I can't."
He kissed her fiercely, high with the knowledge that he finally could.
"I don't know what I'll tell Marmee and Father and Meg," Jo said mournfully. "They'll all be so ashamed. And—I feel like I'm hurting Amy, somehow."
He looked at her carefully. Perhaps he had pushed her too far. "Jo—you don't have to do this. You can go back to…your husband—and undo it."
She looked at him and sniffed, then smiled shakily through her tears. "No," she said. "This is one choice I don't want to undo."
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