Author's note: Time jump a few years! :)
- - … -
Beth was knitting at the couch, when Jo sat down beside her, handing over an envelope with a look of elation on her face.
"Ninety dollars!" Beth exclaimed, quite as excited as Jo looked. "Dear me, how did you manage it?"
"That story of mine finally sold," Said Jo, who had had quite a few trials in trying to sell her book, for the publisher did not want it unless she added a romantic sub-plot for her heroine, and removed every part that she found particularly exciting or interesting.
"This is what comes of pandering to the public it seems, and I'll take it," Jo continued.
"Are you sad at all that you had to change it to suit others' taste?" Asked Beth.
"Angry, more like it. On the one hand I feel as if I've played a great prank on my readers, and come out the victor. On the other… it's difficult to explain. I had so many hopes riding on that story for such a long time. But never mind that. I'm a business woman now, and I mean to make my contribution to the family. I know that Daisy and Demi need new things, and Marmee's winter coat is quite worn through. I suppose Amy doesn't need anything, flitting about Europe, but what about you Beth? What do you want?"
"I'd very much like to make a contribution to the family myself." Beth said thoughtfully.
"You do."
Beth gave Jo an incredulous look, thinking of how she spent her days doing very little other than the daily chores. Certainly she'd never produced anything extraordinary, as Jo did.
"Truly. You stay in it, and don't fly away as Meg and Amy have. Somebody has to help me uphold this household."
"I don't think I could be happy anywhere without you - and Marmee and Father of course. Meg's not very far away at least, and the children are so dear."
Jo frowned at that, in a way that troubled Beth. She was not prone to speaking her feelings as she did now, but she did not see why they should make Jo unhappy.
"I imagine your children will be even dearer, once you marry and have them," Jo said, speaking as confidently as if her engagement had already been set. In fact, she'd had a disturbing habit of doing so lately, though Beth did not even know any men to speak of, aside from Laurie. Both sisters had said more than once that they would never marry, and neither entirely believed the other. From what Beth could tell, Jo considered her a sort of domestic saint, eminently suitable for life as a wife, never once considering that Beth might not be able to find a husband. Beth, for her part, had seen too often how Laurie hung off of Jo and alluded to promises, to believe that the two would not eventually be wed.
The girls finished their conversation there, but Beth had not forgotten her desire to do something of her own for the family.
She remembered, four years ago, how she had brought Jo's stories to the publisher, and how very happy Jo had been to see her name in print for the first time two weeks after. Laurie had been calling her the "little thief" ever since, never mind that she was no longer so little, and that she had not truly stolen Jo's stories in the first place.
She had not had such a fit of boldness since then, and when next she saw Laurie, she decided it was time for it.
The two of them were alone, for Jo was sleeping, and so very tired that Beth could not dream of waking her.
"You'll be through with college in only a month," Beth said, for once beginning the conversation.
"I will. Will you be coming to watch me graduate, along with Jo?"
"Yes."
"You'll have to wrestle her out of bed that morning, for my sake."
Beth could only nod at his joke, for she was concentrating quite hard on what she wanted to say next.
"Will you ask Jo to marry you after?"
Laurie stopped and stared at her. For all that Beth was soft spoken, she could be just as blunt as Jo at times, for she was incapable of small talk, and tended to put too much effort into simply coming out with what needed to be said, to adorn her words with pleasantries.
"What do you think, Beth?" Laurie asked, suddenly all seriousness.
"I think that you should."
"Jo promised me that we would, but that was years ago, after her first illness you know. And perhaps it was only some remnant of the fever talking but…"
Jo would have interrupted Laurie here, and he trailed off as if waiting for her to do so, but Beth merely listened.
"It's what I want, more than anything else in the world," Laurie finished.
"Jo wants it too. And she loves you, so very much. I don't know why she doesn't show it better."
"I think I do," Laurie said. He was very serious now. Beth felt as if for the first time they were talking together as a man and a woman, and not a pair of children.
"Tell me."
"Perhaps you don't see things as I do, because you are always here, and I can only come when I don't have my confounded studies keeping me away, but… Jo is not well, no matter how she pretends to be. I come back each week, and see that she is thinner, and paler, less able to…"
Beth buried her face in her hands, for she knew that Laurie spoke the truth, and she did not know how to stop it from happening.
