Prompt 53: Earth

The worms that spilled out of her hands wriggled in their eternal pursuit for warm, moist earth until they crawled under the dirt by her trowel, kicking little balls of dirt in their wake.

Jo sighed heavily before dumping the rest of the soil back into the hole, wiping her forehead as she looked disapprovingly at her work.

She really was a terrible gardener.

The pansies she'd intended to move from behind the house to the front windows which she now sat underneath withered by her knees, their roots still bare in the midday sun, stretching for the promised hole which was slowly filling without them in it.

"Oh I'm sorry," Jo said mournfully to the flowers that seemed to have their buds turned away from her "Really I am. Next time I'll think this through before uprooting you from home and heart." She smiled sadly at them before filling the rest of the hole, attempting to cover the mess she'd made with the large leafs of the ferns beside it before dusting her filthy hands on one of Meg's aprons.

Her sister wouldn't be mad if she explained herself well enough, Jo thought unconvincingly as she looked at the stains her hands left behind. Maybe after cleaning up the evidence it wouldn't seem like she'd worn it at all. Which, she decided as she looked down at the grass-stained, dirt-covered garment would be an afternoon's work in itself.

"Why must I rush into everything!?" Jo cried to herself as she stood with the pansies in hand; ready to return them to their spot beside the stairs at the back door. Picking up her trowel with the air of a frustrated and exhausted individual she trudged her way around the house, ignoring the little golden head with blue eyes that sat purposefully by the window that looked onto their neighbour's house.

"For heavens sake," Jo muttered under her breath as she passed the window, hiking up her skirt in one hand before she turned the corner and resignedly sat down in front of the hole she'd made an hour earlier. Rolling her eyes at her own ineptitude, Jo dumped the pansies in the ditch and haphazardly threw the dirt she'd left piled up around the hole back into it, only mindful every third scoop or so when the flowers started to tip over.

Finally the plant was back in its rightful place and Jo sat back on her feet, her hands limp by her side, the trowel's handle resting in her fingers. She stared at the purple and blue petals that hung just a little sadder than before she dug them up and once again Jo sighed heavily at her misfortune of not having a green thumb. It made her almost want to cry looking at the pathetic way the pansy drooped due to her and she hated feeling this emotional over something so small. Something other than her writing.

A rustle to her left caught her attention and Jo whipped her head around to catch what made the noise, silently thankful it stopped her eyes from welling up. She waited for any sign of movement in the hedge but it was as silent and still as when she passed it with the pansies before. Frowning at the bushes she picked up her trowel and stood, deciding it was probably a mouse that one of the cats would take care of later. Jo looked back down at the flowers and remembered that she would have to water them after re-planting it before she felt a pair of large hands cover her eyes.

"Christopher Columbus!" Jo jumped, the sudden appearance of another person scaring her half to death. "What do you think you're doing?" She knew exactly who it was.

"Well this isn't fair at all." The hands dropped and she spun around to glare at her neighbour who pouted back charmingly. How was it he was blessed with such features, Jo thought distractedly with her hands curled on her waist. "It's cheating if you don't at least guess who it is."

"Who else hides in bushes, scaring people half to death? – it's your own fault Teddy," she countered, turning back to her pansies as though they were of great interest. With a small noncommittal shrug she wandered from the bed towards the back door.

"What are you doing, please?" Laurie asked, catching up to her with ease.

"If you must know, I was only doing a little gardening. Now it's high time I go in," Jo said evasively, climbing the short step to the door.

"Wait –" Laurie stopped her hand on the door knob with his own. "Jo," he started, breathing heavily as he loomed over her.

"Teddy, please," she said, flicking her eyes up in warning. "You know you're not allowed –"

"It's not that. Why haven't you come to see me?"

Jo met Laurie's pained gaze at that, pulling her hand off the door, away from his, with slow guilt. "Laurie…"

"Jo, please," he said, mirroring her words but with a tone all his own. Jo dropped the trowel and Laurie took her hands in both of his; leaning forward with the most ardent look she'd seen yet. Jo swallowed at the intensity before breaking his gaze ashamedly, looking to the pansies at her side. "I don't care if your mother won't see me, or if you don't want to speak five words to me; I have to know – why did you kiss me?"

"I," she begun quickly without one of the hundreds of excuses she'd thought up every night since that particularly foolish afternoon. "I," Jo mistakenly looked back up at him, catching instantly every spec of hope etched across his face trying desperately to be hidden under an expectance for disappointment. "I," all the wind rushed out of her lungs and she felt completely boneless, not knowing how to excuse, admit, explain away her actions that day.

"Tell me it wasn't a mistake." He squeezed her hands, hope breaking its way through as he begged. "Tell me you know what I've felt for so long. Oh Jo, don't disappoint us."

Jo swallowed again, scrunching her eyes shut at the hopeless look on his face. What could she say without crushing his dear heart and burying hers in the process? She looked back at her freshly re-planted posie and the answer, the reason she'd gone and done such a stupid thing struck her with its horrid honesty.

"I kissed you because I'm horribly silly, Laurie. I kissed you because I haven't quite learnt the trick of containing myself. Of letting myself not get carried away and swept up into the daftest things. I'm silly and horrible and stupid and I've gone and ruined everything because I can't stop myself and think." Jo pulled her hands from his, wrapping her head with white knuckles. "If only I could think before diving into these calamities!"

"But Jo –"

"No," she interrupted, pushing past him to pace the lawn, hands on her back. "I'm too impulsive, Marmee knows it, God knows it, everyone does. I shouldn't have done something so stupidly spontaneous that it'd-" Jo stopped mid-rant to look across to her boy who stood so patiently by the step looking completely lost by her explanation. She'd led him on with that one act, that one spur-of-the-moment, why-not, here-goes act and now he was going to hate her forever and she'd only her nature to blame.

"So you don't…" he begun hesitantly, not wanting his suspicions to be true.

"I don't love you that way, no." Jo stilled as she saw his eyelid twitch in half a crooked wink before he crammed his hands in his pocket and looked at the ground under his polished shoes. "I'm so desperately sorry, Teddy." She stepped forward towards him, wishing she could go back in time to last Tuesday and save them both from this.

"Are you sure, Jo?" he looked up with old hope.

"I-"

"'Cause I felt something in that kiss," he took her hands again, "and I know you did too. It couldn't have been simple trick of spontaneity when you – when I…" Jo coloured at his inability to express the moment when her fingers fell into his hair and he bumped her against the banister. "It wasn't just getting overcome with an idea Jo, and you know it."

"No I- " but Jo could not finish her sentence for Laurie's lips were upon hers, soft and warm as they impressed upon her that strange feeling that crept unexpected in her stomach the first time. One hand came to rest against her cheek, the other at her waist and she prayed no one was looking into the yard when his mouth opened and hers moved in sync as he kissed her fiercely and she kissed him back. A moment later they pulled apart breathless and Laurie stared down at her accusingly.

"See?"

Jo swallowed, not as sure as she had been. She'd flown at him the time before because he'd said the rightest thing in the world to her about her writing and the idea struck her to pay him back in kind with a friendly peck. What she had intended had come out very differently though for when her father opened the garret door and saw them at the top of the stairs it was enough to have Laurie barred from the house. It was her silliness as she said, but now, with Laurie standing before her, eyes as black as her ink, his hands on her shoulders, the incessant fluttering of her stomach - Jo had to admit she rather felt like one of her heroines.

"I-" she tried but was struck with the rather good idea of kissing him again.