The buttons of her dress popped easily enough and Jo shimmied herself free of the material, letting it fall harmlessly to the floor of her bedroom. Without a sound she dug for her nightshirt, undoing the clasps of her camisole with one hand. Slipping two petticoats off at once she reached across the table and blew out the candle ready to cap the night and this whole day. She pulled the cotton shirt over her head, the rasp of the fabric calling unbidden thoughts of Laurie's hands on her skin.
Shutting her eyes Jo sat on her bed not ready to say her prayers when she knew the light was still on in another's house. Pulling her knees to her chin she risked a look for that flickering candle in her neighbour's window and was rewarded with its distant glow through the branches. Jo sighed to herself knowing she had likely said and done the wrong thing again.
She could barely remember fearing his looks all those years ago.
Jo glanced at the empty bed beside hers and swallowed the lump in her throat. God had tested her greatly of late and she wasn't sure He was entirely right about it. How would taking her sisters strengthen her faith and fortify her against the wills of temptation? She felt a harrowing in her soul where she had danced only an hour ago for her part in His creation. Jo had tried not to question His choices but when they left her so raw and hopelessly alone she had to wonder quietly why God had done such a thing and why she failed to see the answer. She couldn't ask Teddy when he'd all but blamed Him for the sorrows in her life when they'd talked quietly in the garret. 'He keeps taking and taking and you say nothing as if it's all alright. But it's not Jo and I can't love him for it like you do, so please; don't ask me.'
Looking back at the candlelight she wondered just what it was he did so late. It was hardly a known ritual between them but Jo had come to count on the sight of Laurie's light before she blew out her own and shut her eyes to the world. She knew nothing of his own side to the nightly routine and when the candle suddenly went out Jo blinked dumbly in its place. She strained to catch sight of another light but only felt the surrounding darkness press about her. Jo closed her eyes as she felt icy fingers touch her body, the overwhelming shadow of the room swirling around her as she sat alone. It was alright when she knew Laurie was still awake but when the light went out and Jo was not asleep her room filled with ghouls and ghosts she'd fancied in jest as a child and grew to know as truth with her sisters' passing. She swallowed, hugging her legs a little tighter when the scratch of the tree on her window startled her witless. Jo jumped off her bed, stopping only to pick up her discarded dressing gown, pulling it around her as she strode out of the horrid room.
She stared at the door she shut noiselessly with disdain. There would be no sleep for her there tonight. Jo looked to the stairs considering another option she had only taken sparingly in past. He had always offered but she'd felt it wholly improper only now when the all-consuming darkness of her bedroom and the whispers of her sisters-long-gone did she even think of it.
Pulling her gown about her tightly she marched down the stairs unable to stand about in the hall facing that dreadful room any longer. Soon she was closing the front door with great care so as not to wake anyone before she hurried down the path and jumped the fence between her yard and Laurie's. Jo knew she was breaking every social code and convention, not to mention her very own personal rules she had only just laid down with good reason in the kitchen.
And hadn't Laurie proven just how well he didn't understand her?
Jo stopped her long legs mid-step. She was being silly – her bedroom wasn't filled with ghostly shadows, only the sinister oppression of her lonely thoughts. Oh she was alone! She shivered in the cool spring night, the filmy cotton of her nightclothes insufficient when a light breeze whipped around her.
What was she doing? Had she gone mad; standing in the Laurence's yard in the dark of night in naught but her pyjamas when she had just bid Laurie leave? Thinking of the terrifying darkness waiting for her by Beth's long-empty bed Jo turned back to the Laurence's house. If she really was going mad she'd rather not be alone anyway.
She needed him, always had and shivering she went on.
Climbing the trellis to the upstairs hall window she felt splinters stick her hands and feet, Jo knew the window was kept open – she'd seen Laurie climb it many a time having kept too late and scrambling to avoid a lecture – and she prayed it was one without a lock for having climbed to the top there was no way down. Counting her blessings the glass opened without force and she wormed her way through landing light on her feet on the carpet train.
Jo silently padded her way to Laurie's room thinking not of the boy within by of her eldest sister. Meg would have had the fit of her life if she'd known what Jo was doing, the girl thought for once a mischievous smile twitching at her lips where sadness was wont to linger. She had wanted this day for her dear sister because as Laurie had guessed, she was worried she was forgetting gentle Meg. Time moved on without her presence and only childish features on her babies' heads served to remind Jo of Meg's soft eyes or the curl of her brown hair. She worried when they had grown she would replace the picture of Meg in her mind with a bumbling collage of John's nose and their aunt's dimpled chin from her children's inherited collation. Conversations she'd shared with her sister were loosing their clarity, Jo could no longer quote Meg's reaction to her soiled gloves, the third pair and it worried her so much she felt it was a worm eating through her belly. Jo paused, her hand against the offending muscles as she stared at Laurie's closed door. Suppose he locked it?
She brought to mind Meg's face when she'd written a particularly jolly piece on pies and boys and she'd handed the paper over whispering that if Meg was to have children they would be just so. She'd hoped with all her heart her sister would know what she meant. Meg had read the piece with a solemn face – her thumbs pale against the pretty-scented parchment. Jo waited patiently, her head on Meg's knee and when her doe-eyed sister turned her gaze upon her she smiled so sweetly that Jo imagined nothing closer to the holiest of mothers.
'Don't you think?'
'Oh my Jo,' Meg had thrown her arms around her sister and cried – 'Just so!'
Jo had always known Meg to be emotional but it was her tenderness that leant such unconditional compassion and beauty of spirit. She'd returned the embrace grateful Meg had understood the gift and the honest hope for the little bump swelling under her pinafore.
Jo swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. She'd really done it now! Thinking of Meg when she resolved to go to Laurie and here she was crying at his door! Jo kicked herself, pinching her arm contritely.
She would not forget Meg, not with memories like that and she was a fool for even thinking it for a second. She kept those memories locked tightly to her heart, sparing them only to commit to fading paper that sat in the last chest in a row of four with two short letters branded across its top. Jo would not forget but she could no longer deny the happy light she had found in such a dark valley of her life.
Jo took a deep breath turning the door knob and entered his room.
A/N: this will make more sense/seem more acceptable in a few chapters, guys. Just go with me for now.