Horrible Blue Booties
A Mirror, Mirror fanfiction
~1981~
A day rarely goes by during which Nicholas does not think of Jo.
This is why, even when he was in his prime, and not an old man as he is at present, there was never any question of trying to find somebody else. She made an indelible impression on him in 1919 and he's never gotten over it.
When Louisa's plane was lost, he privately cried buckets, like the silly old man he knew he had become, unable to help himself, and yet – somehow – even his sadness at her death – the death of perhaps his last real friend in the world – was overshadowed by a sort of burning joy in his chest he wasn't entirely certain wasn't a mild heart attack or stroke brought on by the knowledge that the same day Louisa quit this world Josephine – soon-to-be Tiegan – was coming into it.
That has been the worst of the waiting – the knowing she wasn't out there, the painful knowledge someday a girl called Jo he cares deeply about would be in the world, would come back to 1919 to meet him and change his life forever, only she wasn't yet. He could endure separation from her if he knew she was out there. Her not being anywhere was an acute pain only matched by that which he felt when he dreamed of his family some nights and did not quite remember, until fully coming awake again, they were dead.
Perhaps this was why he clung to the theory he'd come up with that part of Louisa's soul was the same as Jo's – because it meant part of her was still around as long as Louisa was.
But that is in the past now.
There is a Jo, at last, laid out in a bassinet in an Australian hospital, and Andrew and Catherine Tiegan are going to adopt her – in this version of history, anyway, until he changes it.
So old Nicholas occupies himself with a little project to contain both his joy and sorrow, all mixed together.
He is knitting a pair of blue baby booties.
It is perhaps worth noting, while Nicholas is a competent man at handicrafts, sewing and knitting and suchlike, the end results of his endeavours, although perfectly serviceable, are rarely aesthetically pleasing.
In childhood, when he made scarves and hats and socks, only his mother – doting Alexandra, who thought anything her Baby made was perfect, regardless of how ugly it actually was – and his sister Marie – too tender-hearted to tell him his handmade gifts were in fact hideous – would willingly wear them.
He'd once thrown a tantrum, a rather spectacular one, when Anastasia flatly refused to don a pair of mittens he'd made for her before going out into the cold.
Papa, as he recalls, had managed to be a bit more diplomatic, telling him he couldn't wear his creations in front of the ministers who were already very jealous of him and would surely bubble over in their envy if they saw him wearing one of Alexis' distinctive scarves – they'd all be wanting one themselves, and he was too often indisposed to make scarves or hats for each individual minster.
The blue booties for Baby Jo now being completed are no different – they are perfectly horrid.
Still, with the unwavering confidence of a man who was once a boy who should have been an Emperor if the world hadn't changed so suddenly and robbed him blind, Nicholas wraps them up in soft tissue paper, as carefully as if they are made of glass instead of yarn and thread, and sends them to the Tiegans' address in Australia.
Poor Catherine Guthrie Tiegan is momentarily dumbfounded when she opens this parcel a couple of weeks later, peeling back the delicate paper to reveal the little blue monstrosities.
It is partly the unsigned card that dumfounds her, because it says the gift is for Miss Jo Tiegan, and Catherine is certain she hasn't told anybody she intends to name the baby the adoption agency has promised her Josephine. She wonders if Andrew has spilled the beans to someone without meaning to. They've promised each other – because there had been an incident before, with another baby they'd tried to adopt, the baby's birth mother changing her mind – not to tell anyone until their Baby Jo is safely home in the little crib they have all ready and waiting for her.
But it is also the gift itself that makes her lip curl and her nose wrinkle – what horrible, horrible little blue booties! How someone could make something so ugly, let alone bring themselves to gift it to another person astounds her.
And yet she's so happy – it's almost like a sign, her baby's first gift arriving just when her rattled, jittery nerves were on the verge of getting the better of her – her heart might burst forth from her chest.
Jo will be wearing these horrific blue booties the very first time Catherine holds her, and she will never, ever forget them.