A/N. I shipped Laurie/Jo before I even knew what shipping was, and even though I am now Mature Enough to recognize the wisdom of Jo/Bhaer and Laurie/Amy, I will always be bitter that Jo/Laurie isn't endgame. That and a crazy long commute to my internship led to furiously typing this on my phone while stuck in traffic. Fudged with the timeline a bit to make it work.

Title (and mood music) from The Ghost In You.

Europe is magnificent, all patterned high ceilings and worn cobblestone lanes and local cuisine that he can't pronounce and can't get enough of. Nice, Paris, Prague, Rome: they all hum with a history and energy unlike any of the great cities back home. Not that they're better, necessarily, just utterly different—and it's not until he's actually there that Laurie realizes how badly he needed something different.

Because Europe, with its slow pace and muted colors and sometimes ostentatious elegance, is as far removed from Jo as he can imagine. It's not just the ocean separating them; it's very hard to imagine Jo, all blazing fire and restless motion, in the middle of these dusty old cities well past their primes. She'd laugh in the heavy silence of an ancient chapel, dance in the middle of St. Mark's Square, mock the stuffy portraits in the endless hallways of the Louvre—yes, Europe wasn't her, not at all, and here it was easy to forget her.

(Except sometimes he sees her writing the story behind Mona Lisa's smile or rummaging through the shelves of a secondhand bookstore or listening raptly as a tour guide explains a castle's bloody history, and he knows that she'd love it here. She wouldn't be washed out, she'd make everything around her glow as she always did; she'd make the cities come even more alive for him than they already are.)

Although he and his grandfather have settled in Vienna—many of the company's business partners are here, and the music scene is incredible—he explores a new city every other week, buying postcards to hang on his wall back home. He buries himself in guidebooks and gets lost in museums, sleeps in overnight trains and sketchy hostels, visits cafes and bars and flirts with too many girls. He tries very hard to forget her indeed, and sometimes it feels like he's succeeding.

After a couple of months he feels strong enough to visit Florence, and Amy within it, on scholarship at a fine arts school. They meet for dinner at a sidewalk cafe with a view of the Duomo, and he feels his confidence grow by the minute. Because Amy is so very different— golden curls to Jo's dark pixie cut, sunshine and dainty elegance to fire and unrestrained passion—it's easy to pretend that she isn't Jo's little sister, isn't someone so tied to his past. She seems to belong here, flirting with the waiter in fluent Italian, her heart-shaped face out of one of the portraits in the Uffizi.

Maybe he could fall in love with her, he thinks idly, watching her hands wave around as she gushes about her classes and complains about her homesickness in turn. They could move here permanently—Grandfather wouldn't mind him taking over the Europe part of the family business—and wander from city to city, just another young cosmopolitan couple with few obligations and too much money. They could linger over coffee in Parisian cafes and island hop in the Mediterranean, spend lazy Sunday afternoons together with their art, he with his piano and she with her paint and brushes. It would be easy, really, if he wanted it to be; Amy's not the little girl she used to be, beautiful and charming and lovely in her own right—

But for all their differences, she's still Jo's sister, and all he can see is Jo in the tilt of her chin and the arch of her brows and the way she takes her coffee. He doesn't want easy; he wants flashing grey eyes and ink-splattered fingers and helpless laughter. He wants Jo, has always wanted Jo, and it's taken four months of trying to move on and seeing her sister for him to realize he'll never stop wanting her.

Which leaves him in a hell of a position, rejected and heartbroken halfway across the world. Four months, and he's back to square one, if he ever even left it in the first place.

Laurie eases up on the travel, throws himself into his work. He avoids bars and parties if they're not for business and makes new deals every week. Slowly, he grows to enjoy it—he'll never have the same passion for it the way he does for music, but following his passions hasn't done much for him so that's probably a good thing. His grandfather is both pleased and concerned, but he says nothing, only watches Laurie over the breakfast table with those unreadable eyes.

He drops in on Amy every month. She's still his unofficial little sister, and he knows it eases Marmee's mind that she's not entirely without a familiar face. They grow closer—not in the way they could have, if Laurie could only force himself to let it—but she really has grown up, no longer the bratty preteen who wiped Jo's prized novel-in-progress from the family computer in a tantrum.

She ambushes him about Jo the second time he visits her. They're browsing the Mercato del Porcellino - "it's a tourist trap, but you have to go at least once" - and Laurie pokes halfheartedly through some shawls.

He holds one up for her approval. "For Beth? She hasn't said anything, but Meg told me she's been extra tired lately."

Amy barely looks at it before rolling her eyes and pushing another one into his hand. "Your fashion sense's gotten a lot better though, that wasn't completely horrible."

"I've been in Europe for half a year," he tells her cheerfully. "Breathing all this fashionable air is doing wonders for my aesthetic tastes."

She ignores him, only dumping more shawls into his arms as the seller looks on hopefully. "The floral one for Marmee... Meg loves blue, and this'll go so well with her eyes...and this one for Jo."

Hearing her name spoken outside of his dreams for the first time in months is like a punch to the gut. The tangle of fabric flutters back down to the table, and he's grateful for the brief distraction as he scrambles for something to say.

Amy, unfortunately, knew exactly what she was doing. "Funny," she says, folding the scarves and putting them back into his hands, "how you've been here half a year and you haven't mentioned Jo once, and when I mention her, you practically have a heart attack. I mean, I've never had a decade-long, we-finish-each-other's-sentences friendship like you two have, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."

The times when Laurie's grateful he doesn't have siblings are few and far between, but this is one of them.

"So you finally got your head out of your ass and realized you're in love with her."

He keeps his eyes trained on the stacks of fabric in front of him, ignoring Amy's (and the curious seller's) eyes on him.

She laughs. "I knew it. There's no other reason for you to stay here this long without even visiting, with Jo's graduation coming up and Beth going through chemo."

"I'd fly back right away if the treatment wasn't going well —"

She waves a hand at him. "You love Beth as much as we do. I'd be with her now if I was free to do whatever I wanted for a few months—which you are, Theodore Laurence, don't pretend like your grandpa wouldn't let you, especially since Beth's involved. Hell, he'd fly out with you."

Laurie can't really argue with that—the instant one of Marmee's biweekly emails mentions anything worrying about Beth's chemotherapy, Grandfather would be booking them a first class flight back to Pennsylvania. But Marmee's as calm as ever in her e-mails, warm and cautiously optimistic, full of her usual chatter on the various going-ons of the March family.

"So this—this being your running away to Europe, thousands of miles away from where you really wanna be, by the way—has to be about Jo. And the fact that you're in love with her, and you don't want to tell her 'cause you're afraid it'll screw up your friendship or some stupid shit like that."

His hands clench into fists, and he screws his eyes shut. "Amy, it's not happening—"

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Laurie. You guys are perfect for each other, why won't you just tell her instead of being miserable - "

"I did!" Laurie practically shouts, and he can just feel her mouth swinging open. He sighs, shoves a bill at the wide-eyed seller before grabbing the shawls and walking away. Amy follows, although she says nothing.

"I did," he says after a while, still not looking at her. "I told her. And she said no."

She's silent for a moment, before blurting out, "And she's supposed to be the smart one?"

"Amy—"

"Seriously, what the hell is wrong with her, I've had a crush on you for forever but you two were freaking made for each other—"

She stops short, looking up at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. "Oops."

Laurie laughs, frustrated and a little angry at himself—it would be so easy, if he really wanted to move on, if Amy didn't deserve better. But he doesn't, and she does. So he just laughs.

Eventually she joins him, shaking her head. "That was so not how I wanted to tell you, if I was gonna tell you at all."

"I figured."

"Yeah, in my mind I was super sophisticated and had a fabulous boyfriend, and we got drunk on champagne or something and I'd mention it to you casually, just something silly to laugh about."

"We're laughing now," he points out.

"That's true," she hums. "Although there's no champagne or fabulous boyfriend in sight."

"No luck in that area then? You wouldn't shut up about Italian boys before you left."

She rolls her eyes. "So over that. Although I'm not heartbroken, so my luck's better than yours."

He sobers immediately.

"You don't even deny it."

"I tried," he says, trying to inject some humor in his voice. "But you know your sister, she really makes her presence known. Won't be ignored."

"What did she say to you?"

He laughs, winces at the bitter edge. "What didn't she say? She doesn't want to be tied down, she'd hate going to all the snooty social shit I have to attend, she'd only make herself look stupid and make me resent her, we're too alike and our fights would be like World War III, we'd be stupid as anything more than just friends, Teddy—"

"Complete bullshit, in other words—"

Laurie stops and turns to face her. "Look," he says, scrubbing a hand over his face. "It doesn't matter if it's true or not. She said no, and that's that."

"But she does love you, I know she does, I bet if you just go back and talk to her—"

"This isn't one of your fucking rom-coms, Amy," he's practically shouting again, because he can't bear to hear what she's saying, can't bear to have the slightest shred of hope wriggle into his heart again for nothing, "Jo's not going to fall into my arms just because I show up at her doorstep with flowers. She barely even heard me out the first time—she practically covered her ears. It was pretty damn clear that I shouldn't talk about it again, or she'd stop talking to me. And I couldn't stand it if I lost her friendship."

"You've got a funny way of showing it, then," Amy shoots back, a brow arched like she was eight again and sneering at his and Jo's muddy clothes. "Running off across the Atlantic and not talking to her, not a call or an e-mail or even a fucking tweet—"

He's come close, so many times. Every morning the first thing he does is check her social media profiles, desperate for some insight into her life. He smiles at her rants about her classes, follows the links she shares, looks up the people she tags and replies to. It's masochistic torture, and completely pathetic, but he can't really dredge up the desire to stop.

"Yeah, well, it doesn't seem like she even noticed," he says, running a hand through his hair, "seeing as all her tweets lately are to that German asshole—"

"If you were actually talking to her," Amy spits at him, "then you'd know that Fritz is just a friend, a good one—"

Laurie snorts, but she barrels on, "Although if you don't do something, they'll probably end up dating, and the only reason they've gotten this close in the first place is because you left and broke her heart—"

"I broke her heart? Are you fucking serious?"

"I know my sister—"

"You didn't even know why we haven't talked!"

"I might not know the details, but I can tell that she's devastated—no matter what she said, no matter if she's in love with you or not, you're still her best friend, you know her better than anyone, even me and Meg and Beth and Marmee, and you just left and haven't talked to her since, with all that's going on in her life—how do you think she feels? Get over yourself, Laurie. I've been rooting for you guys since we met, but if this is how you're going to treat her, if nursing your hurt pride is more important than your friendship, then she was completely right to turn you down!"

Amy glares at him, chest heaving; despite the six inches he has on her it feels like she's looking down on him. She only spares him one more scathing glance before turning on her heel and striding away, leaving him utterly speechless.

Laurie spends the rest of the weekend getting drunk on cheap wine, agonizing over Amy's words and his own actions. He shows up at the townhouse in Vienna miserable and hungover, falling onto the sofa and burying his head in a pillow.

He can't see it, but he can feel the raised eyebrow directed at him from across the room. He doesn't usually come to his grandfather with his romantic woes, but seeing how Amy of all people set him straight and forced him to take a good look at himself, maybe confiding in Grandfather isn't such a terrible thing. At any rate, he can't make Laurie feel any worse than he already does.

He peers up from under his pillow. "What do you do if you've completely fucked things up with the most important friendship in your life and realize it six months too late?"

Grandfather sets down his paper, actually seems to consider the problem seriously. "Normally I would say grovel on your knees, but I suspect that wouldn't help much with Jo."

Of course his grandfather knows. For all his reserve and air of detachment, the old man doesn't miss a thing.

"She probably hates me. Can't say I blame her. How the hell am I supposed to start talking to her again?"

"You're her best friend, Theodore. You can answer that question better than anyone." He picks up his newspaper and disappears behind it—they've clearly hit their quota of grandfatherly heart-to- hearts.

Laurie buries his face into the pillow again and indulges in self-pity for a good ten minutes. Then he pulls out his phone, starts drafting an e-mail:

I'm an idiot. I'm sorry. I meant what I said, I still do, but I shouldn't have hurt you just because I was stupid and bitter. I wasn't thinking straight when I drove up to New York and told you, wasn't thinking of the timing and the distance and me having to go to Europe for a year and you finishing your degree—honestly, I was only thinking about you. But you knew about all that, you knew it was wrong—wrong timing at least, because more than ever I think if we gave it a shot we'd be fucking amazing. You've always been wiser than me like that.

You're my best friend in the world, Jo, before and beyond anything else, and I should've remembered that. I know I've been a total asshole and don't deserve your forgiveness, much less your friendship, but you've always been too good to me (and too good for me) so I'll hold onto the hope that we can just be friends again.

Laurie wishes he could send it, because he means every word. But it's too raw, too earnest—Jo might adore passionate declarations of love in what she reads and writes, but he knows (and his own ill-timed confession confirmed it) that in real life she's fiercely embarrassed by such things. And he doubts that a repeat confession will be particularly well-received after six months of radio silence. He'd be lucky if she didn't delete it halfway through reading it.

He tries in vain to edit out anything referencing his feelings. He really will be content with just her friendship again, because God he misses that, misses being with someone who just gets him the way she does. But it's an impossible task; his feelings are the exact reason why he has to apologize for being a jerk in the first place. Not explaining any of it is just obviously, awkwardly avoiding the elephant in the room.

And if there's one thing Laurie and Jo aren't (or weren't, before he fucked it up), it's awkward. They were always easy laughter and inside jokes, comfortable silences and in-depth conversations about the weirdest topics. He wishes they could just go back to that, without going through something that only makes both of them uncomfortable.

He stares at his screen. Maybe they can. He saves his e-mail as a draft—one day he'll show it to her, he dreams—and pulls up Jo's page. She's posted one of her usual tweets griping about writer's block, and before he can think too much about it, he types out a quick response:

What's a small thing like 50k words to the indomitable Jo March? You'll smash through it like always. I still have dibs on the first autographed copy btw

Laurie knows she'll understand the implicit apology, appreciate him sidestepping the issue. They'll talk about it eventually, he'll make sure of it; but for now she's not ready, and Amy's forced him to realize that neither is he. He takes a deep breath and hits Send, then forces himself to put his phone away.

A minute later it vibrates, staccato against his thigh, and his heart beats wildly as he scrambles to fish it out of his pocket.

Only if you buy it and wait in line like everyone else.

He smiles. It's a start.

A/N. so this was just supposed to be a couple hundred words of Laurie angsting in Europe but Amy decided she had a lot to say about that and it kind of exploded from there. I actually have the next two thousand (much less angsty) words for this on my phone so there may be a sequel if i can figure out where it's going.