Notes: This was written for yuletide2010 as a gift for anythingbutblue, who wanted bittersweet Jo/Laurie fic.
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Laurie was in Italy with Amy when Jo first published the book that would bring her fame.
He didn't hear much of it at first. He was traveling Europe, and his days were spent leading Bess down narrow roads that he vaguely remembered from his youth, introducing her to the people, the countrysides, the sweet, singing buzz of language and art. His nights were devoted to Amy, as they had been since the first day of their marriage. He had no time to think of Jo and stories.
That was why when Amy sat down besides him one day holding a thick letter bearing Jo's name, he smiled as if he'd just received the nicest of surprises.
"Ah, do tell me what scrapes the old girl's gotten into," he said as Amy opened the envelope, never once guessing that his childhood playmate had managed to entangle herself in her biggest scrape of all. Amy leaned her blonde head upon Laurie's shoulder, holding the letter between the two of them, so that they might read it together.
"It's good to hear of the children back home," Amy commented, after several minutes. "Though I'm quite afraid for Demi. A reporter! I hope the career shan't spoil him."
"He's got too good a head on his shoulders to let it be filled with rubbish. He's been nothing but dutiful all his life. Can't say I'm surprised he's finally done something a little wild."
"You say that as if all boys must," Amy pointed out, shaking her head and laughing at his grin, for she knew just what sort of youth her husband had been.
"Girls as well! Listen to this - Josie is stage struck as ever, and I'm afraid Meg will just have to get used to it, for there's no way around it now but to let the interest flourish, or burn out on its own."
"I don't envy Meg. Josie is very admirable for wanting to make something of herself, but so many troubles come with the profession, and I wouldn't wish them upon her any more than I would wish them upon our Bess."
Amy paused here, evidently thinking of her own daughter, who both mother and father knew to be the most sensible of young girls. There was no fear of her getting in trouble, and though Laurie occasionally wished that she would just a little bit, there was also comfort in knowing that their child's placid and obedient nature made her easy to protect.
"Here, look at this," Amy said, ghosting her fingers of a few lines written in Jo's bold strokes. "She says that Tommy Bangs has entered medical school, and has made no secrets about why he's done so."
"Poor lad. He's in for a shock and a heartbreak," said Laurie.
"Papa, come here, I want you to listen to me play," called a voice from the other room. He stood to go, and Amy just had time to catch the expression on his face, and wonder at what it meant.
She returned the letter to its envelope with a sigh.
A small, grayish piece of paper fluttered to the ground when Amy stood, having gone unnoticed until the moment. Bending to receive it, Amy saw that it was an article clipped from The Spread Eagle, reviewing the novel Young Ladies, written by one Josephine Bhaer.
"Warm and touching, a delight to read!" The article gushed.
Amy smiled. "How nice," she said, to the empty room. "It's about time Jo wrote another novel."
With that she tucked the little article into her pocket, resolving to show it to Laurie as soon as he was finished with Bess.
Amy did show him the article later that night, and about two weeks later, on the day they were meant to sail from England to America, Laurie found a surprise at the newspaper stand.
"Amy! Bess!" He called. He was approaching the dock where the two women were waiting for him, waving a copy of the London Herald in one hand, whilst balancing two cups of hot coffee in the other.
"Now you look at this," he said. He handed each woman their drink hastily, before spreading the newspaper open to a page with the heading Up and Coming Authors.
"See if you don't recognize one of the names," Laurie said, beaming.
"Why, it's Auntie Jo!" Said Bess said with a sweet smile. "But here, it only says her name and the book's title. I shall have to read it when we are home, won't I mother?"
To this Amy nodded her assent.
"It's quite a thing that she's known abroad. I don't know what to make of it, but I'll bring the article along to show her when we get home," said Laurie.
Just then the ship's horn sounded, loud and clear throughout the quiet harbor. The Laurence family prepared to board the ship, each in their own way eager to leave the wonders of Europe behind and embrace the more modest pleasures of home.
*.*.*
The first time a pair of autograph hunters showed up at the gates of Plumfield, Jo Bhear was surprised, but pleasantly so.
"Isn't that something?" She said to her oldest son Rob, who had opened the door and brought the guests to her attention. Even now, she could see the woman and her young daughter walking away over the grounds of Old Plum (as some of her boys affectionately called the estate), clutching their albums as if they were treasures. The whole thing was quite odd, but Jo was unable to keep from smiling.
"It looks like you're famous, Mum," said Rob, shutting the door for her.
"Probably not, but I'll leave it to you to tell your father and Ted, I'm afraid I'd start crowing if I tried to tell the story. Back to work, then. My publisher expects another two hundred pages by the end of the week, and it puts bread on the table, so I won't disappoint him."
With that Jo climbed the stairs to the little room where she did most of her writing, shaking her head at just how strange people were.
Well, she thought, if people are strange, than circumstances are even stranger.
And it was true that circumstances had been even more strange and topsy-turvy of late than usual. She remembered how once Fritz had told her that medieval philosophers believed that fortune was a sort of wheel, in which those at the top must be prepared to be crushed to the bottom as their lives turned, and those at the bottom could always expect to one day find themselves thrust to the top. Well, certainly the winter had been a bad one; money had been tighter than ever, and she had been confined to bed with an illness which still showed its mark in her thin face and the way she woke up coughing most mornings. It made sense in a way that she should just now find a morsel of the fame she had sought as a young girl.
And so she sat down to write, never dreaming of how that fame would blossom, only to grow into something unmanageable.
*.*.*.*
One month passed before Amy, Bess, and Laurie arrived in America, and another two days before they finally reached Concord. Bess was exhausted. Europe had agreed with her wonderfully, but the sea had not, and the rocking of the waves had frequently left her unable to leave their cabin. Thus it was decided that she would stay home for a day, and Amy would watch her, leaving Laurie alone to call first on their family.
He stopped at Meg's house first, for it was on the way, and she always gave him a good welcome.
"Josie is out and you will have to go to Plumfield to find Daisy and Demi," she said, over a pot of tea that she had made for the two of them to share. "That is, if you can get into Plumfield."
"Why wouldn't I be able to get into Plumfield?" asked Laurie, who was rather intrigued in the hint of amusement on Meg's face.
"Wait and see," she said. "Plumfield has become a circus since Jo wrote her book."
The next five minute were spent in an attempt to get more information out of Meg, who smiled mysteriously, and insisted that no words from her could describe the state of things so well as a trip to Plumfield itself could. Thus, cutting his visit rather short, Laurie decided to do just that.
It was true that there were four or five people milling outside the grounds - seven actually, once Laurie counted. A few of the men seemed to be reporters, and they eyed him suspiciously as he approached.
"She won't answer any of your questions, so don't you bother trying," warned one brash young man, pad and paper in hand.
Laurie raised his eyebrows in surprise, but continued on, only to find that another reporter had followed him.
"Besides," said a second reporter, "I was here first."
"Oh indeed?"
"Yes, since four this morning, and if the lady's going to talk to anybody, well, I'm the first in line. She's not givin' autographs today, either. Heard she was yesterday."
"I've heard that she doesn't like to be woken until half past seven sharp," Laurie laughed, "and is in her very most amiable mood in the afternoon. My sources are good. You might give it a try. Or you could always try Emerson. I hear he's kind to reporters."
"All authors are bears," said the young man sourly.
"Then you'd better learn a thing or two about how to deal with them, before rattling at their cages. Liable to get your hand bit off, you know."
Bounding forward, Laurie decided to try his luck doing just that, for Jo's home really had become a cage of sorts.
*.* .*.*
"A visitor ma'am," whispered Mary at the doorway of Jo's studio.
"Oh, hang it, and I suppose whomever he or she is couldn't be kept out?" Jo grumbled, immediately feeling guilty about it. Mary was the third in a line of maids whom she had hired in the last month, for the express purpose of giving her some peace from the public, and Jo was afraid that she wasn't being as jolly as she ought to, for the two women before Mary had quit.
The maid turned. "Oh, I told you to wait downstairs," she whispered with evident distress, to the dark-eyed man who had appeared in the doorway.
Much to the maid's surprise, Jo stood up right away, and flung her arms around the visitor. So it had been the first time Laurie returned from Europe, bringing with him a new wife and a past that needed reconciling, and so it was now.
"It's so good to see you back, and just the same as ever," Jo declared, parting from the embrace, though Laurie still held her arms lightly. "Where is Amy, and whatever were you two thinking, staying away so long?"
"At home resting with Bess, and were you or were you not just trying to get this good woman to send me away?"
Laurie gestured to Mary, who still stood at the doorway, a little dumbfounded by the whole exchange.
"To think!" Jo laughed. "Mary, this is Laurie, and you must never keep him out. But do go downstairs, and make sure that the others don't invade, for I'd like to enjoy him just now."
Mary left, and Laurie stood taking in the little studio with its piles and piles of paper. Jo, too, was ink stained, her hair all a mess, for she never had gotten out of the habit of rumpling it when she was deep in thought.
"I meant to give you an article about you that I found in London, but I guess you'd have no taste for it."
"Not at all," Jo said bluntly. "I'd tell you to look out there, but as you can see I keep the blinds shut, to keep the reporters out. Tommy Bangs was over some days ago - somebody spied him in the window, and the very next day I read in the paper that Josephine Bhaer had been seen talking to a handsome and mysterious young man! I wonder what sort of a stir you'll cause."
"Are you saying I'm handsome and mysterious?" Laurie asked, to which Jo rolled her eyes.
"Just the same as ever, as I've said."
"You look like you're sixteen again," Laurie pointed out.
"I hope not," Jo said earnestly. "dodging the public has made a guy of me, though, I'm afraid. Such scrapes, Teddy! I've had to sneak out of my house through the window twice since this began,"
"You're thinner as well," said Laurie with a frown. "And pale. Has all been well Jo, truly?"
He touched her face lightly, as was his way from time to time, thinking as he did that tenderness towards his surrogate sister was the best repayment for all that he'd put her through in their youth. Jo looked down and away from his touch, after a minute.
"Better than well, don't you think? Prosperous."
"So I see, and I'm dying to hear all about this book of yours."
"Ah," said Jo. "And here's where you have to pay the forfeit my boy, because I'm sick and tired of talking about me book. First you tell me everything that you and Amy got up to in Europe this time around, and how Bess liked it, and then I'll answer anything you want to know."
*.*.*.*
Several hours passed with coffee, sandwiches, and tales of European adventures that Jo listened to with an interest that Laurie thought made it no wonder that her boys flocked to her.
"That's all I have to tell," Laurie said, finally, leaning back in his chair. "Now, what about your latest work of creative genius, Shakespeare?"
Jo snorted. "Moral pap for children, more like it, but it sells. Goodness, it sells."
"What's it about, then?"
"Us, actually."
"Us?" Laurie asked, feeling quite surprised. "And it's very moral, you say?"
"All of us, actually. Only the names are changed, of course. Amy is May, Meg is Anne, I'm Louisa, and you're Laddie. I kept Beth's the same. Couldn't bear to change it."
"And what do we do?" Laurie asked.
"Oh, everything we ever did. At least the interesting things."
"The day Amy fell into the river?" Laurie asked, interested.
"Yes, absolutely."
"Camp Laurence?"
"Every bit of it."
"Where does the story stop?" Laurie asked, wondering just how much of his history Jo had committed to paper, and feeling that between the two of them some encounters had been too personal to be part of a children's story that Jo claimed to not even like.
"When father comes back from the war. I thought I'd end on a high note, when everyone was…"
Somebody who did not Jo as well as Laurie did would not have noticed the cloud that passed over her face, but a youth spent studying her every expression had not been in vain, and Laurie reached out for her hand.
"Thank you," she said. "I just thought that Father coming home was the best ending to the tale."
"You must've been correct, judging from how popular it is."
Jo nodded.
"Yes," she said, "but now I've got a heap of letters clamoring for a sequel, and I intend to write it."
The same sense that had allowed Laurie to recognize Jo's sadness allowed him to recognize the doubt in her voice when she continued.
"The girl readers mostly write to say that they want to see Laddie and Louisa married," she said, in the tone of one who was not sure if she was telling a joke, or a grave secret.
"Oh," was all that Laurie could think of to say. "Well. Will they?"
"No. No they won't," was Jo's decided reply.
"I see. Not pandering to the public then?"
"That's the funny thing. Everything about the novel has been an exercise in pandering to the public. I think Laddie and Louisa are the one change I'm unwilling to make for their sake."
"Ah."
The pair was silent for a minute, Jo fiddling with her pen, before Laurie stood up.
"It's getting late," he said.
"It is. I suppose I must let you go back to Amy now."
"Yes, but have you got a copy of the book on hand? I'd like to read it, and Bess also said that she would."
"Here," Jo said, after a quick rummage. "It's the sort of book that's made to bore men to tears, I warn you, but perhaps knowing the protagonists you'll find something to amuse yourself."
"I'll see you soon then?" Laurie asked, taking her hand when she offered it.
"Very soon, I hope. Come tomorrow, if you can push through the masses, and bring Amy with you."
The reporters were still outside when Laurie left the house, and eager as ever for a story.
"What exactly is your relationship with Josephine Bhaer?" Asked the reporter who had tried to warn him off earlier.
Laurie was tempted to say something along the lines of, "Past love affair. Very torrid and tragical," but he kept his mouth shut, for fear that those very words would appear verbatim in the Sunday paper.
The reporter wouldn't understand even half the joke, anyway.