Notes: Having never written a Jo/Bhaer piece, I decided to give it a try. In the books we get a very realistic portrait of the beginning of Meg and Brooke's marriage, including all of their little fights and reconciliations. That early part in Jo/Bhaer's marriage mostly happens off-screen, somewhere between Little Women and Jo's Boys. It's that off-screen time that interests me, particularly considering how changed Jo's character seems by the time she's introduced in Jo's Boys. Anyway, criticism is appreciated, considering that this is quite different than what I usually write for the fandom (and it's my first time writing Bhaer in a fairly normal domestic situation, as opposed to the version of the character that I write in Braver Than We Are.).
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When Frederick Bhaer looked back on his life, it seemed to him that most of it had been devoted school and schooling. He'd been a student much longer than most, and though he did not often speak of it, he had studied far past the point at which a common man would begin to refer to himself as being "very educated". He'd taught from then on, in one way or another, whether to flocks of enthusiastic young man in Berlin's great oration halls, or to little Tiina who had no money to pay him or reason to learn any of the subjects he'd once specialized in, but had been happy to sit on his knee as he helped her to recite the English alphabet.
Yes, he'd lectured and taught and learned, but what he was trying now with Jo was completely new to him. When she'd first told him her idea of opening a school she had seemed nervous, not because she was naturally a shy creature by any means, but because she'd spoken then in the matter of one who had all of their hopes and dreams on the tip of their tongue. Since he'd agreed to the plan, however, she'd looked forward to their school with complete confidence, as if nothing short of an apocalypse could keep the institution from coming into being.
That left only him to worry over the difficulties they were to face, and though he knew that he must, especially in terms of their rather shaky finances, he found it difficult to do. It was the easiest thing in the world to be carried along by Jo's optimism, and to listen to her whisper "castles in the air", as she called them, in those precious moments just before they drifted off to sleep.
Alas, this peaceful and happy image of Jo was soon to be shattered by the woman herself, in a way that Bhaer had not experienced before.
Jo walked inside, slamming the door before she could stop herself. The effect was rather like a bolt of thunder through the quiet halls of Plumfield, and Jo immediately wished she hadn't done it. She also wished that her shoes were not muddy, and that her hair had not begun to come free of its net. For a moment she was torn between trying to bully the offending strands back into place, shouting, or locking the door against the friend and foe who probably wasn't following her anyway.
The Jo of two years ago would have done all three at once. Josephine Bhaer did none, but forced herself to take a deep breath and try to settle herself. She probably should have taken a walk rather than returning home in such a mood, but it had been a walk (albeit with a certain party) that she had just run from.
"Jo?"
It was her husband standing before her, and not having had quite enough time to extinguish her formidable temper, Jo answered with a "Yes," which sounded cruelly sharp even to herself.
"Yes?" She repeated, more evenly this time. Seeing that Fritz looked confused she went on, "Oh, I know I look frightful, and I feel frightful as well. I didn't mean to snap at you just now."
Now, Bhaer was not at all accustomed to seeing Jo look as if she would like to strike somebody, and that combined with her claiming any sort of frightfulness was more than enough to raise concern.
"That's fine," he said, going to her at once. "It is no problem. Are you ill?"
He placed a hand on Jo's arm, not knowing that many people who had known Jo for much longer than he had would have just as soon reached inside a tiger's mouth as touch Jo when she was in such a mood. Thankfully, Jo did know this, and it was enough to make her laugh for a moment.
"Not unless it's a chronic sort of illness. And wouldn't it be a fine thing if we could just dose ourselves with medicine to cure all of our little faults?"
Another smile from Jo, but Bhaer could tell even as she retreated into the hallway that she was unsettled. Of course, she only had to mention "faults" for Bhaer to know what she was talking about. In New York they had often spoken to each other about their pasts, and had done so ever more intimately since their marriage. Jo had more than once mentioned her anger, and how she regretted it but could never seem to quite overcome it. Bhaer had resolved to help her with this in whatever way he could, but it seemed to him he had had little chance to, for the Jo that he knew seemed ever so much more calm and happy than the woman she described herself as being. Little did he know that he had been helping her all along.
He followed her into the library, a small room which had often proved a refuge for both of them. There were many shelves of books here, but as she had inherited the majority of them from her Aunt March, only one small shelf housed the volumes which were especially well liked by either of them. It was to this shelf that she went for refuge, and he let her, knowing that it was her own mind that she arranged rather than the carefully sorted volumes. He took a seat at his desk and waited for Jo to come speak to him, as he knew she would.
"I feel like you're waiting for me to enter the confessional." Jo said finally, sitting across from him. The words, and the hint of bitterness with which she spoke them, were not something she was proud of, but she had always been in the habit of speaking her mind.
"Why is that?" Asked Bhaer who looked hurt, far more so than he had when she'd raised her voice at him in the doorway. It made Jo feel oddly tender, for she knew that her husband loved her dearly and put a great deal of value on each of her words, even those that she might speak when she was lashing out aimlessly. In a way, this made him much more easily wounded than the boy whom she had lately been fighting with.
"Probably because I know that I'm in the wrong, and ought to confess."
"I hope you don't think of speaking to your husband in such a way," Bhaer said sadly, for though Jo had spoken on whim, based on an idea that could change from one moment to the next, the image and her strange behavior made him feel as if the center had been knocked out of their little world.
Jo, for her part, was not sure what she felt on the matter just then. She had spent most of her life resisting change, and yet lately she had been trying to force it upon all aspects of her life with all the delicacy of a sledge-hammer. Over night, it felt at times, everything about her life was suddenly altered - her goals, her home, her relationships, and even her way of thinking. Mostly she was pleased with what had developed, and with what she was doing, but there were also times when she was torn between wanting the fly backwards into her past, and scolding herself for not moving forwards quickly enough.
A long silence passed, in which Jo kept her eyes trained on the table and thought, and Bhaer wondered what he had done, and what to do with her. Finally he decided that the kindest thing to do was let her confess if that was indeed her inclination.
"Never mind," Bhaer said. "We are not here to make judgments and do penance, but we can talk about our problems."
"It's only that I've been arguing with Laurie, and I feel silly about it," Jo said, but Bhaer did not think that there was any only about it. There never was when it came to Laurie, in his opinion anyway, and Jo mentioning him did little to ease his worries.
"What did you argue about?" Bhaer asked.
"Writing," Jo said, as if she were indeed confessing a secret. "And money."
"Why should he be worried about these things?" Bhaer asked. Now it was his turn to sound harsher than he meant to be. "Writing has no relation to him, and he has enough of money."
Jo frowned. Laurie and her husband had not exactly taken to each other as well as she had once hoped, particularly not since she'd told Fritz that Laurie had once proposed to her, and she did not want to say something to further diminish her childhood friend in his eyes. Nonetheless, she thought it better that she go on, and do so honestly.
"We were talking about the school," Jo explained. "And of how I'm to afford desks, books, and food for the students, once we have them. He knows I won't let him give us the money outright… that much has been well settled, but he doesn't understand why I'm not as 'resourceful' as I used to be."
"Resourceful about your writing?" Bhaer guessed, at which Jo flushed, remembering well what he thought of some of her past writing.
"Yes. He thinks he understands why I can't seem to sell any manuscripts lately, but he also comes up with simple solutions that aren't as feasible as he believes. I know if I were to write trash to finance our school you wouldn't like it, and I wouldn't like it either."
"I'm happy that you feel so, but why should he discourage you from it?"
"Because he had a bad day at work, I suppose. And because he's been reading my writing since the beginning, and we used to rather enjoy my old style," said Jo, conscious that she was admitting to something with reference to her 'old style'. Bhaer knew as well, and put a hand on her shoulder, though he did not dwell on the topic.
"And because we always did argue," Jo continued after some time. "I don't think we'll ever stop completely."
"It makes you unhappy to argue with him," Bhaer said. "So why do you so often walk with him?"
"Amy and I had our spats too you know, and I'd be fool to think that we never shall again, but I don't get rid of her."
"I have not seen you fight with Amy," Bhaer said.
Jo almost smiled at this.
"It's a wonder we didn't kill each other as girls. I was a wicked, wicked child." Jo nodded, and though Bhaer could never believe she had ever been as wicked as she claimed, she had said so often enough and with enough conviction that he knew better than to contradict her.
"Laurie and I are too alike for our own good," Jo explained, returning to the topic at hand. "But he's every bit as essential to me as Meg and Amy. I don't imagine that I could part with him."
Bhaer nodded at this, but did not answer right away. There was so much to think of, and so much that he did not yet completely understand. A part of him, the fairly silly part of him that was fiercely possessive of his young wife, and which could be made as insecure by love as any man, wanted to make Jo draw comparisons between himself and Laurie. This, however, he would not do.
"Do you believe he brings about the worst in you?" Bhaer asked instead.
"Probably, at times. But we're never so very bad together, and I think marriage has improved us both. Amy handles him wonderfully, dear girl. Only… well, before you and I married, I told Laurie that we should no longer play, but always be solemn and dutiful, but I'm afraid that we aren't."
In this way, Jo eased his worries a bit without even guessing them or meaning to, but he did have one question that needed asking.
"You do not think that I'm always…as you say, solemn and dutiful with you?"
Jo laughed, and shook her head. "No, I don't suppose that you could be. It was only an old idea that I had about adulthood and marriage, and what I should be."
"You often think of what you should be." Bhaer said. This was his first time to realize this about Jo, but he knew at once that it was true. He also knew that while such thoughts could be good for many people, for Jo they were not.
"I do," Jo admitted.
"I think," said Bhaer, "Perhaps it is better to think instead of making the best of what you are. I like who I have married, and do not want to see her change in any way but what is natural as time goes on."
He did his best to remember this, hours later, when Laurie came over to reconcile with Jo, and as he listened to the two of them laugh over some private joke. Her strange friendship with her brother-in-law, and her strong ties to her own past, were indeed a part of Jo, and something which he would learn to accept. The way that she kissed him that evening, and the love in her voice as she spoke to him, made it easy to do so.