Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

champagne problems, chapter three

title: champagne problems

fandom: little women

pairing: theodore laurence x amy march

rating: pg

summary: amy accepts fred’s proposal, and laurie comes home and marries jo. but instead of it being the end of something, it’s just the start of something bigger.

(or, how laurie and amy find their way back to each other.)

chapter one: champagne problems

chapter two: right where you left me

it’s nice to have a friend

She’d missed him.

That’s all she can think when she’s with him - how much she’d longed for him during their self-imposed separation.  The longing wasn’t conscious, of course, at least not on her end; she’d thought she was fine without him.  She was fine, she supposes - maybe a little scarred, or heartbroken, but finenonetheless.

Things are different now.  There seems to be a section of her heart reserved for him, that feels empty when he’s not around.  Life is livable without him, she’s discovered, but not nearly as comfortable.  Not quite as happy.

(She blissfully ignores the implications of that.  She knows that, sooner or later, Fred will stop traveling long enough for them to get married.  That she’ll move away, only see her family on holidays.  That she’ll have to cut that part of her heart, and the boy next door, out of her life.  But right now, that coming stage of her life stands firmly in the or later, and she keeps it there.)

Being with him is like being given some combination of the best parts of their time in Europe and the most treasured memories of childhood, and getting to live it all over again.  They take afternoon strolls on the quaint and quiet streets of Concord like they did on the bustling avenues in Paris, arm in arm.  Instead of spending time in grand gardens and courtyards and hotels, they sip tea in the backyard of Orchard House, surrounded by wildflowers planted by Beth years ago.  They sit together in the March front room, and she reads while he plays sweet songs from his imagination on Beth’s piano.  They go to the beach, and she sketches him just like she used to.  And sometimes, they even venture into the attic, where he places a top hat on her head and they put pipes in their mouths, trying to clank them together as they shake from their incessant laughter.

Sometimes, he looks at her the way she used to watch him look at Jo, and it’s like the wildest, most wonderful dreams from her youth have come true.  She shouldn’t enjoy it as much as she does.  She should tell him to stop.  The implications.

But it makes her feel warm from head to toe, overwhelms her in the most beautiful way, so she lets it go.  Sets it apart as something else to delay and deal with later.  For now, she lets herself cherish every moment, clings to him before he’s inevitably torn away from her.

For now, she holds his gaze, and when he smiles at her, she smiles back.

* * *

She doesn’t mention Jo at all for the first few weeks, and instead focuses on yanking him out of the funk he’s in.  And even after that, she hesitates.  It’s selfish, she knows, but their time together is so wonderful, and she’s afraid to ruin it.

But Jo is coming home from one of her New York trips the next day, and she can’t seem to get her sister’s face out of her mind as they walk down the small dirt road that leads to town.  It’s cloudy and cool today, and she can almost smell the autumn that will soon be upon them in the air.  She waits for a short lull in their casual conversation, clears her throat, and forges ahead.

“Laurie?”

“Amy?” he asks back, mimicking her soft tone.  

She can’t help the smile that blossoms on her lips, but she bites it back after a moment, elbowing him in the ribs gently.

“Stop that.  I’m trying to be serious.”

He laughs lightly, and elbows her back.

“Fine, then.  What serious subject would you like to discuss, Ms. March?”

His voice is low and teasing, and she almost forgets the topic completely, comes up with something that is decidedly not serious.  He’d tease her again, they both would laugh, and then they would continue on their stroll, his good mood unsullied.

“Amy?” he questions curiously.

She closes her eyes, and all she sees is her sister.  It decides her.

“We need to talk about you and Jo.”

He stops with a jerk, pulling her back where their arms are looped together.  She stops as well, letting her arm fall from his and taking a step forward without turning back.

“I’m here to help the two of you.  I’m…I’m here for her, not you, remember.  Like I told you the first day.”

That’s a lie, rasps the voice inside her head.  She might’ve been there for his sister in the beginning, but every second they were together he wore away at the walls she’d constructed carefully during their separation.  With every smile, laugh, brush of his body against hers, they’d crumbled until nothing remained.  He tucked himself back into her heart, until every beat sang for him.

Laurie, Laurie, Laurie.

Not that he alone was at fault, of course.  She’d been all too eager to let her defenses fall, to let him into her life like he’d never left in the first place.

She swallows down her guilt with a slow gulp, and then continues.

“I know you’ve been happier around her when she’s home.  She’s told me that much.  But there’s still something amiss between the two of you.  I can see it when the two of you are together.  I can feel it.  So, we need to get to the bottom of it.  We need to fix it.  Please, Laurie.  Don’t fight me on this.  Don’t -”

“I’m not going to fight you,” he murmurs, his quiet voice interrupting her speech.

She pauses, and turns around to face him.  His hands are in his pockets, his face turned down.  He looks up at her after a moment, a shy and regretful smile on his face.

“You’re - you’re not?” she stutters.

“No,” he says, shaking his head.

“Oh.”

Just then, the sound of thunder rumbles around them.  She looks up at the sky.  It’s gotten darker since the beginning of their walk.

“It’s going to rain.”

“Yes,” he agrees, and holds out his arm to her again.  “We should turn around.”

She nods, and she joins him once more as they start towards home, the pace they set a bit brisker than the leisurely one they usually took.

They walk in silence for a moment, and she’s about to prompt him again when he speaks.

“I thought it would be easy, being married to her.  Loving her again.  Everything we’ve ever done together has been easy, since the night we first met.  I didn’t see why this would be any different.”

He almost laughs to himself.

“She wrote me, you know.”

“Yes,” Amy tells him.  “You mentioned something about a letter when we were in Europe.”

“No, she wrote me here.  Put the letter in our old, little mailbox.  When I first saw her, she looked like she expected something of me, and when I didn’t know what it was, she told me to check there.  She’d written me a letter.”

“What did it say?”

“To ask her again.  That she’d…changed her mind.  That she’d been young, and foolish and didn’t know what she truly wanted.”

He shakes his head.

“That should’ve been my first clue that something was amiss, I suppose.  I think Jo came out of the womb knowing who she was and what she wanted.”

She’s silent as she studies him, trying to get a read on his feelings while she waits for him to continue.  The expression on his face is neutral enough, but she can sense his sadness in the slow lilt to his voice - a voice she’s always known to be so full of life.  She remembers how it had rung out in the attic the first time he’d joined their family club, how her heart had leaped at the sound of it.

She can sense it in the sag of his shoulders.  Like he’s holding a weight on his back that he might not be able to carry much longer, that’s trying to crush him - his soul and his spirit.

“But I did,” he says with a shrug.  “I asked her again.  And you know the rest.”

“Do you love her?” she asks carefully, and she’s sure if she stuck her hands straight out, they’d be shaking.  She’s afraid of his answer; she knows that either way, it will break her heart.

But he continues on like he hadn’t heard her question.

“It’s not right.  Nothing is right between us.  There’s no laughter.  No joy.  No passion.  We haven’t even kissed since our wedding night.  And maybe that shouldn’t be important.  Perhaps I’m being crass or selfish.”

Amy flushes, suddenly looking down at her feet.  That means…oh.

“I don’t even want it if she doesn’t!” he says, speaking quickly now, oblivious to Amy’s embarrassment.  “I don’t want to force her to do anything.  I even think I could get past it if everything else was…but it’s not!”

He stops, taking a deep breath.  Another peal of thunder rings in their ears.

“It’s not,” he murmurs.  “Nothing is.”

She looks back up at him.  He brings his free hand up to wipe at his eyes.

“Do you love her?” she asks him again.

“I want her to be happy,” he says instead, and she can tell this time that he’s ignoring her.  “I’ve always wanted her to be happy.  But she’s not, and nothing I do makes her happy anymore.  It just seems to…bother her.”

She can feel the first drops of rain hit her shoulders.

“You said we need to fix this, but Amy.  I don’t think there’s any fixing it.  At least, I don’t see a way to fix it.  It’s been broken from the start.”

It begins to rain harder.  They look at each other, and begin to jog briskly down the road.  They’re not far from home, and reach the walk up to Orchard House soon enough.  He goes to turn, but she reaches out, stopping him.

He stares at her, brow furrowed.

“What are you - “

“Laurie, do you love her?” she asks.

He’s still for a moment, then takes her hand and tries to start towards the house again.  But she yanks it from him.  The rain has increased in intensity, coming down in a steady pour now.  She tries to wipe the water from her face and eyes, but it’s no use.

“LAURIE!” she shouts over the sounds of the storm.

He stops again, turns and gazes at her helplessly.  He doesn’t want to answer her, but he must.  They both know that everything - all hope for him and her sister - rests on his response.

“Do you love her?”

“I thought I did!” he shouts back after a moment.  “Of course I thought I did.  Until…”

He stops himself.

“Until what?” she questions.

Water comes down in torrents.  Thunder crashes once more, and a bolt of lightning brightens the gloomy sky.

He stares at her.  Looks at her like she’s all that exists in the world.

And she realizes all at once, with a rush.  It washes over her like the soaking rain.  And she can hear it in her mind, his voice, as clear as a quiet whisper in her ear.

Until you, silly girl.

She has her answer.  And the two of them should head inside now.  She should send him home, really.  Call this whole thing between them off, send her regrets to Jo.

But she only stares back at him, her feet planted in the ground.  She couldn’t move if she wanted to.  Her heart beats so wildly that she should feel faint, but blood runs through her veins and air flows through her lungs and she can’t remember a time in her life when she’s felt more alive.

He takes a step towards her, then another.  She tilts her face up.  He’s close enough now that she could reach out and touch him, if she wanted to.

“What are you two doing out here?!?”

Marmee’s voice is faint, but they both hear it, and both their heads turn at the same time to see her dear mother standing in the entrance to Orchard House, her hand above her head to try and shield her from the rain, uselessly.  She motions to them.

“Come inside!” she shouts.

They turn back towards each other, wide-eyed gazes locking for a brief second.  Slowly, he backs up, pointing his thumb towards the Laurence estate.  She nods, and he begins to run across the street.

She watches him for a moment more, and then jogs up the path towards her mother.

* * *

“I still don’t know what the two of you were thinking, standing out there in the rain like that!”

She’s sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, at the feet of her mother.  She’s changed into dry clothes, and now Marmee is wringing the water out of her hair and into a bucket.

She doesn’t say anything.  Instead, she watches the flames of the fire dance in front of her, the brightness of the warm orange and yellow hues hurting her eyes.

But she doesn’t blink.  She only stares, and thinks of the time she burned up Jo’s book.  How she had dropped each page into the fire with such satisfaction, one by one by one.  And then afterwards, how sorry she’d been.  How she’d sworn to herself that she’d never destroy one of her sister’s things again - not one that meant so much to Jo.

“You’re lucky you didn’t catch cold,” Marmee tells her, before getting up.

She’d sworn.

When Marmee returns, she drapes a blanket over her daughter’s shoulders, whispering in her ear, “Just in case.”  Then, she sits down and begins to run a brush through Amy’s long, blonde hair.

Until you, silly girl.

She’dsworn.

“You’re awfully quiet.”

She presses her lips together, tries to gather herself even a little bit before looking up at her mother.

“We just got caught up, I suppose.”

Marmee hums.

“Must have been an important conversation, to last through that awful rain.”

She presses her lips together again, looks back towards the fire and tries not to roll her eyes.  She loves her mother with her entire being, but it’s always been a bit inconvenient that the woman could see through her like she was a sheet of glass.

“We were talking about Jo,” she tells her.

“She tells me Laurie’s much happier,” Marmee says.

“Yes,” Amy murmurs, trying to seem disinterested.  “It seems he is.”

“Are you happy, Amy?”

The question startles her; she hadn’t expected her mother to ask it, and she has no idea how to answer it.  She doesn’t know how to tell her mother that in the moments when she can escape the guilt that eats away at her, she’s much too happy.  More happy than she has any right to be.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel,” she says instead.  “All that matters is helping Jo.”

When Marmee speaks, she can hear the smile in her mother’s voice.

“That sounds like something our Beth would have said - something so selfless and noble.  So kind.”

Amy’s stomach lurches.  To be compared to Beth, when she could quite possibly ruin everything.  Destroy everything Beth held dear - their family, their sisterhood, their love for each other.

She’s no Beth, and she immediately tells her mother so.

“None of us are,” Marmee assures her.  “We can only try to honor her - to be even half as good.  Even half as loving.”

A silence falls over the two of them.  She goes back to staring at the fire, but now Beth’s face is all that fills her mind.  She misses her sister dearly, with her whole soul - misses her sweetness and her compassion.  Misses the sound of her songs on the piano, the soft way she would talk to her dolls, the way she would sit at the edge of a room sometimes with tears in her eyes, overwhelmed by loving them all so much.

She’s not Beth.  She’s not half as kind, half as selfless, half as pure and loving and good.  But she can try.  She can try for her sister.

Maybe she can start with being honest.  And there’s a secret on the tip of her tongue, pushing against her lips, bubbling up inside her and begging to be released to someone.  To anyone.

“Laurie asked me to marry him,” she tells Marmee.  “In Europe.”

The brush gliding through Amy’s hair stops abruptly, but Marmee doesn’t say anything.  The silence is deafening; it’s not like her mother to be speechless, to not immediately find a comforting word, and she begins to grow restless.  It all pours out of her, then.

“He told me not to marry Fred Vaughn and to marry him instead.  I said no, of course.  I was just a placeholder for him.  A poor substitute for Jo.  I refused to be some sort of consolation prize.  I said yes to Fred, instead.  And Laurie came home and married Jo.”

Marmee still doesn’t speak.

“And here we are,” Amy says, just to fill the silence.  But her voice breaks on the last syllable, a tear falling from the corner of her eye.

The brush in her hair starts to move again, more gently than before.

“Do you love him, Amy?” her mother whispers.

“I’ve always loved Laurie,” she says matter-of-factly, trying to drain her voice of any emotion.  “I’ve loved him my entire life.”

Not when I’ve spent my entire life loving you!

She wipes at the tear that fell down her face, prays her mother doesn’t see.

“But do you love him?” Marmee asks her.

She thinks of her sister again - of Beth.  She used to share a room with her, the two youngest sisters who were always sent to bed earlier.  She remembers crawling over to Beth’s bed once in the middle of the night, long after candles had been blown out and the rest of the house had settled.  It was before everything - before Father had come home, before her sister got sick.  They’d only known their neighbor Laurie for five months.  He was Jo’s best friend, but whenever he looked at Amy, butterflies swarmed in her stomach, and her cheeks flushed.

So she crept over to her sister’s bed, shook her awake, and whispered a secret in her ear.  Beth smiled, and promised she would never tell.

“I’m tired,” Amy declares.

It’s not a lie.  She’s exhausted, has been ever since that garden in Paris.

Don’t marry him.

“I’m tired, and I think…I need to get some sleep.  Especially since Jo is coming home tomorrow.  We’ll have a big day!” she says, pushing as much fake enthusiasm into her voice as she can muster and standing up.

It’s not even time for dinner.  She doesn’t care.  She feels like the walls are closing in on her.

“Goodnight, Marmee.”

She leans down to place a quick kiss on her mother’s head, and tries not to run from the room.  She thinks she hears Marmee’s soft voice call her name from behind her, but she doesn’t stop moving until she’s up the stairs and carefully locked away in her room.

She sags against the door, and closes her eyes.

* * *

Jo brings him over to Orchard House the next day.  Her train came in early this morning, and on the way back from the station the two of them stop in for breakfast.  She hears rather than sees them walk in, because she’s been hovering in the kitchen with Hannah, trying to avoid eye contact with her mother.

Marmee and Father greet them, and they talk in the front room for a few minutes, questions about New York and her sister’s travels filling the air.  She picks up on Laurie’s voice without meaning to.  She can’t make out what he’s saying, but he sounds pleasant enough.

She wants to know what he’s thinking, to know whether he can’t get yesterday out of his mind.  If he can still hear the thunder ringing in his ears, still feel the cold rain hitting his skin and dripping down his back.

She can; it’s like she’s been stuck outside with him since yesterday, the storm brewing around them.  He’s standing in front of her, gazing at her like she’s something precious.  Something to be treasured and loved.  And if she reaches out, she could touch him.

Until you, silly girl.

“Amy.”

The sound of her voice lifts her from her thoughts.  She looks up.

Hannah has disappeared, and he’s there, in her kitchen.  Laurie.  He startles her so much that she lets out a yelp and jumps backwards, knocking a pair of forks off the table.  They fall to the ground with a soft clang.

He has a smirk on his face as he leans down wordlessly to pick the utensils up.  He moves closer to her, reaches past her to put them back in their place, and again, she could touch him.

She wishes she could touch him.  She wishes she could read his mind.  She wishes…so many impossible things.

“Are you alright?” he asks, once he’s taken a step back.

“Yes,” she says, picking up a towel absentmindedly and running it over her hands, looking anywhere but at him.  “Yes, you just…frightened me.”

A crushing silence envelopes them.  She puts the towel down, and begins to fiddle with the rings on her fingers.  Her engagement ring catches her eye.

Hannah had told her there was a letter from Fred this morning.  He writes her twice a week, like clockwork.  She used to write back to him the same way, until…

Until you, silly girl.

“Are you coming, then?” Laurie asks, finally.

She looks up from her hands.  He’s standing near the entrance to the room, his arm outstretched towards her.  He’s looking at her with that confident glint in his eye that he’s always had, but she can sense a bit of nervousness there, too.

She knows he’s asking about more than her joining the rest of the family.  He’s asking her to move past yesterday.  To pretend everything is okay between them.  To pretend everything is the same.

And she should turn from him, reject him, tell him no.  They can’t keep going on like this; it’s dangerous.  They’re a precariously-balanced house of cards, waiting to fall apart with the slightest breeze or softest touch.  Eventually, one of them will slip.  And everything will come tumbling down.

But alongside the confidence and anxiety coloring his expression, she also sees unending hope.  That she’ll take his hand and everything will be right once more.

That hope beckons to her.  Pulls her to him until she does take his hand, and he smiles.  

She couldn’t resist him even if she wanted to.  And she’s finding, more and more, that she doesn’t want to.  Not yet.  Not for as long as she can manage.

So for now, she nods, and takes his hand.  They move until she’s next to him, and then he releases her.  She can see the rest of the family now.  Jo turns her head, and smiles at her.

She forces herself to smile back.  

“After you, my lady,” he says, low enough that only she can hear, and now the grin on her face is genuine.

His hand falls to the small of her back, lingers there.  His fingertips graze the buttons of her dress, and a chill runs up her spine.

a/n: just a few things!

- beth :(

- i really debated whether to include allusions to jo and laurie’s sex life because like…….i know they wouldn’t talk about stuff like that back then, especially between a man and woman, especially a man and woman who aren’t married to each other. but i felt like it was important, in a way? idk, i just wanted to get across that jo and laurie aren’t working as a married couple on any level.

- on a related note, i am totally in the camp of people who believes jo is asexual, especially in little women (2019). i know that’s not technically canon compliant, but w/e. and that’s just another reason why jo and laurie would just………never work as a couple. (bc i think we can all agree that laurie is decidedly not asexual.) the two of them are just not compatible in so many of those ways.

- look i’m not trying to trash jo x laurie or anyone who ships them (even though i am obviously an amy x laurie shipper and obviously think amy x laurie is the superior pairing). i just honestly can’t see them working as a couple.

- anyways i think it would be better for everyone if i just stopped talking.

hope you liked this chapter! reblog/like and leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

p.s.: i’m really excited for the next chapter :)

xoxo,

rebekah

champagne problems, chapter two

title: champagne problems

fandom: little women

pairing: theodore laurence x amy march

rating: g

summary:amy accepts fred’s proposal, and laurie comes home and marries jo. but instead of it being the end of something, it’s just the start of something bigger.

(or, how laurie and amy find their way back to each other.)

chapter one: champagne problems

author’s note: i’m baaaaack, and so is this story! school is finally out for the semester, so i have the energy to write for fun again. this story (and laurie x amy in general) is the first thing i gravitated back to.

the response to this story has been overwhelming, and i’m flattered so many of you want to take this journey with me. that being said, on to the second chapter! i hope it lives up to your expectations.

right where you left me

“He’s not happy.”

She’s sitting outside with Jo, on a blanket in front of Orchard House, face turned up towards the sun of the pleasantly-warm July afternoon.  She’d been so comfortable that she’d been on the verge of falling asleep, so she doesn’t quite hear what her sister says.  She hums, eyes still closed.

“Hmm?”

“Teddy.  I don’t think…He’s not happy.”

Her eyes snap open at the sound of his name.

She and Laurie haven’t spent time together for months, at least not alone; there are family dinners and outings and holidays, of course, but even then, they barely interact.  She keeps her distance from him, always staying out of his reach.  It’s what is best for the both of them, their responsibility to both Jo and Fred.  It was what they decided to do after they’d parted ways in that grand hall on his wedding night.

Plus, it’s better this way, for the both of them.  Easier.  Resolve isn’t something she’s ever lacked, but she admits it’s easier to stay away from him if she almost forgets the nuances of him - the shine in his eyes when he’s happy, the purse of his lips and crease between his brows when he’s thinking, the way his Adam’s apple bobs when he throws his head back and laughs.  She remembers these things, but they’ve started to go fuzzy in her mind just enough that the pain of not having him has begun to ease.  She can ignore it at times.

“Amy…” Jo insists impatiently.

She blinks, not sure how long she’d sat there lost in thought.  She hardly wants to discuss Laurie - especially not with Jo - but she can’t think of a good reason not to.  So she steadies herself, and forges ahead.

“Not happy?  How could that be true?  He’s married to you, after all,” she teases, a smile plastered on her face as she reaches over and pinches Jo’s cheek gently.

“Amy, I’m serious,” Jo says lowly, swatting her sister’s hand away and pulling her knees up to her chest.  She sighs, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and fiddling with it between her fingers.

Amy frowns.  Jo looks genuinely concerned, and although her situation with Laurie is complicated, she doesn’t like to see her sister upset.  So she sits up properly, crosses her legs in front of her, and promises herself that she will do her best to help.

“What makes you think he’s unhappy?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs.  “He’s been drinking again.”

“Again?” Amy questions, quirking her eyebrow.  “Jo, Laurie has alwaysdrank.”

“I know that.  But sometimes it’s too much.  Too often.  I’ve never seen him drink like that.”

She’s immediately reminded of Europe, of an inebriated Laurie sprawled across a couch with two women at his side.  But she chooses to keep that to herself.  Instead, she presses for more information.

“So, he gets drunk sometimes.  Most men do,” she tells her sister.

“I know,” Jo concedes.  “I know that.  And maybe if it was justthat.  But it’s not.”

She waits for her sister to continue, but she doesn’t.

“Jo, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s just,” Jo begins, slowly again.  Then, she huffs, throwing the piece of grass down on their blanket.  “He’s always so disagreeable when he drinks!”

Amy pauses at that.  She’d always known Laurie to be happy when he was drunk.  Carefree.

“Angry?” she asks carefully.

“No, never angry,” Jo clarifies quickly, then chuckles dryly.  “Although, sometimes I wish he would get angry.  That he would yell at me or throw things, show some emotion, instead of…”

“Instead of?” Amy prompts.

“Instead of seeming vaguely annoyed at everything I do!” Jo exclaims, her words finally beginning to flow.  “And then when he’s sober, he just seems completely disinterested.  I try to talk to him, to tell him things about New York or what I’m working on, but he constantly gives these polite, bland answers that give me no indication as to how he’s feeling or what he’s thinking.  He always seems…distracted.  Like he’s preoccupied by something else and only half-paying attention.”

She stops, taking a deep breath.  Amy looks her over carefully, and then turns her head, looking across the street towards the Laurence residence.  For the first time in a long while, she lets herself imagine Laurie - or tries to, at least.  Instead, she draws a blank.

“What has he been up to?” she asks, genuine curiosity creeping into her voice.  What does Theodore Laurence do all day in that big house, with only the servants to keep him company most of the time?

“That’s just it!” Jo nearly yells.  “I doask, and all I get are these…trite responses.”

“Like what?”

“He tells me he’s been helping Mr. Laurence with the business most of the time,” she says, and Amy frowns.

“Laurie spending most of the time working with the business?  No wonderhe’s unhappy,” Amy remarks, almost making herself laugh, but Jo continues like she doesn’t hear her.

“Sometimes he says he’s been fiddling with the piano.  He tells me he’s writing an opera?” Jo questions, sounding absolutely perplexed.

“In which he would be the central figure,” Amy answers under her breath almost on reflex, smirking, remembering when he told her the same thing in that garden in Paris.

“Yes!” Jo exclaims, hearing her sister this time, and Amy turns towards her again.  “It’s ridiculous!  Wait, how did you know about the opera?”

“Oh,” Amy says quietly, and her stomach drops as she remembers the rest of her and Laurie’s conversation that day.  She stares down, picking out her own piece of grass to play with.  “He…mentioned it in passing once.  In Europe.”

“Oh.”

“Do you doanything together?” Amy asks quickly, trying to change the subject.  “Go to parties?  Plays?”

“We’ve gone to a play here and there.”

“Parties?”

“Ugh. No,” Jo answers, and Amy can practically hear her roll her eyes.  “You know I hate those things.  All the pretense and small talk.”

“Yes, but Laurielikes them.  That’s what marriage is - give and take.  He goes to your plays, and you go to his parties.”

“Teddy likes plays,” Jo says thoughtfully.

“You know that’s not my point, Jo,” Amy tells her, looking pointedly at her sister.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Jo asks, sounding frustrated now.  “Paint my face and dress up in something I hate so Laurie can go drink someone else’s alcohol and talk to people he barely likes anyways?  Besides, I don’t even have a proper dress to wear.”

“You can borrow one of mine.  Or Meg’s”

“Amy,” Jo groans.

“Jo,” Amy says back, imitating her tone.  “Give and take.”

“So, what?  You think if I go to one of his parties, suddenly everything will be better and he’ll be cured of whatever’s plaguing him?”

“No, but - “

“And what do you know about marriage?” Jo continues, cutting Amy off.  “You’re not married.  You barely see Fred.”

Amy prickles at that, and straightens her spine, her head ticking to the side once.

“I’m sorry,” Jo tells her, realizing her mistake.  Amy clears her throat, not looking at her sister.

“Fred is very busy,” Amy says.  “I knew that before I agreed to marry him, and you know that, too.”

“I know.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m just trying to help you, Jo.  Youasked me for my help.  If you don’t like what I have to say, that’s your problem.  Not mine.”

She begins to get up, but Jo latches onto her arm.

“Amy, please!  I said I was sorry.  And I am, truly.”

She pauses, but doesn’t sit back down, either.  Suddenly, Jo lets go of her, and sighs in defeat.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

Her voice is muffled, and Amy looks at her.  Jo’s head is in her hands, her back shaking with her unsteady breaths.  Concern for her sister washes over her again, and she sighs, lowering herself to the blanket once again.

“Jo,” she says, reaching over to try to peel Jo’s hands from her face.  “Jo.”

When Jo finally looks at her, there are unshed tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Jo,” Amy murmurs, and puts her arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“I feel like I’m failing,” she admits.  “I feel like he’s beginning to resent me.”

“He doesn’t resent you, Jo.  He lovesyou,” she reassures her, ignoring the way her heart still breaks in her chest when she says the words.  “He’s always loved you.  Why would he resent you now?”

“I don’t know.  Things were always so easybetween us.  Ever since the day we met, everything just flowed - conversation, laughter, fun.  Love.  But now, it’s like everything’s changed.  It’s all uncomfortable and awkward.  I feel like I don’t know who he is anymore.”

“The two of you were apart for a long time,”  Amy tells her.  “You need to get to know each other again.  Spend time together.  Why don’t you take him to New York with you when you go?”

“So he could sit in a hotel all day while I go talk to publishers?” Jo says skeptically.

“At least there’s things for him to do in New York.  Why don’t you bring it up to him?”

“No,” Jo answers, dismissing the idea quickly.  “He’d hate it.  I know he would.”

“How do you knowthat unless you - “

“Amy,” Jo says sternly, sitting up so she can look at her sister properly.  “No.”

“Fine,” Amy relents, holding her hands up in surrender.  “I just - you need to find a way to spend more time together.”

Amy looks over at the Laurence house again, a wave of sadness overtaking her.  For her sister, yes.  But also for Laurie - all alone, cooped up in that grand, empty house.

“He’s probably lonely,” she murmurs, mostly to herself, but Jo hears her, grabbing her arm and shaking her lightly.

“Yes!” she shouts, and Amy whips her head around to look at her, surprised by the sudden motion and her change in demeanor.  “That’s what I was thinking!  He’s lonely!”

Jo wipes at her eyes, and they shine with hope now rather than tears.

“Okay,” Amy says cautiously.  “And?”

“And I have an idea about that!  Okay, so,” Jo begins, crossing her legs under herself and taking Amy’s hand.  “You and Teddy were close in Europe, yes?”

Her stomach drops again at the question.  She does her best to maintain eye contact with her sister, but she can’t, and gaze darts quickly towards the woods before it finds its way back to Jo.

“I suppose so,” she answers cautiously, with a stiff shrug of her shoulders.

“Yes, you were!  In fact, the only time Teddy’s smiled - I mean, trulysmiled - in the past month or so, is when I mentioned something about the two of you in Europe.”

Her heart skips a beat at that, and she has a sudden, strong urge to cry.  But Jo continues on, her excitement making her oblivious to anything else.

“So I figured that youcould start spending time with him.”

Her stomach lurches.

“Oh, Jo,” she says quickly, closing her eyes and praying desperately that the Lord would give her the words to say.  “That wasn’t - it wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t what?” Jo asks impatiently.

“It was different in Europe,” she says stupidly, and she curses inwardly for not being able to think of a better explanation.  “It wasn’t like it is here.”

She opens her eyes just in time to see Jo roll hers.

“What does that even mean?  Amy, come on.  Spend some time with him while I’m gone, and then when I’m home, he’ll be happier and the two of us will get on better.”

“I don’t know, Jo…” she hesitates.

“Give me one reason why you can’t at least tryto be friends again,” Jo says, crossing her arms in front of her and looking at Amy expectantly.

Because I’m in love with him.  Because I don’t know if I can be friends with him.  Because I don’t know what will happen.  Because I’m afraid.

“I guess…I guess there is none,” she lies, frustrated to no end.

“Exactly!” Jo exclaims.

“But, Jo, I don’t think -

“Please, Amy?” Jo asks desperately, eyes pleading.

She can’t say yes.  She can’t.   But she doesn’t know how to say no, either.

“I suppose I’ll try,” she mutters, and her face flushes.  “But I don’t think - “

Jo doesn’t listen, and instead flings herself at Amy, nearly knocking her over.  She embraces her tightly, and Amy’s words die in her throat.

“Thank you, sister,” Jo murmurs earnestly into her hair.

And Amy can’t help but give a small smile at Jo’s enthusiasm.  At Jo, always a burning flame, a force of nature.

“Of course,” Amy says sincerely.  “Anything, Jo.”

They hug for a moment more, and then Jo hops to her feet.

“Come on!  My train doesn’t leave until the evening.  Marmee is making supper beforehand, and Meg is coming.  I’ll go home and get cleaned up, get Teddy, and be back.  See you soon!”

And Amy doesn’t have a chance to answer before Jo is off, walking towards the front path.  She stares after her sister.

She wants to help Jo, desperately.  She wants her sister’s marriage to succeed.  And if that means befriending Laurie, then so be it, she supposes.

“Thank you again, Amy!” Jo shouts over her shoulder as she crosses the road.

Amy plasters a smile on her face, and then glances once more at that grand house.  When she’s sure Jo isn’t looking at her anymore, her shoulders fall, and she brings her hands up to cover her face, trying to remember how to breathe properly.

* * *

She heads over to the Laurence house the next morning at ten o’clock sharp, head held high.  She’d barely slept the night before, but it didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered - not her heart, not her feelings - except helping her sister.

She walks up the steps to the Laurence residence, stops in front of the entrance, and squares her shoulders.

This wasn’t a friendship, she’d decided.  It was a duty.  Like taking medicine to cure an ailment.  Like men going off to war to protect their homes.

This was her duty, and she promised herself she’d do it with grace and determination.

Taking a steadying breath, she knocks on the door.  It takes a moment, but eventually, someone opens the door.  A servant.  She looks familiar, but she can’t place her right away.  She used to make a point to learn all of the servants’ names.

But it’s been so long since she’s been here.

“Miss March,” the servant says with a smile, apparently recognizing her as well.  Something about that warmed her.

“Hello,” she says, smiling back.

“It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you around.”

“Yes,” she says kindly, resisting the urge to look away, instead holding her head higher.  “I’ve been busy since I came back from Europe.”

“Planning a wedding, perhaps?” the servant says, the smiling never leaving her face.

The question throws her, and her face falls before she can stop it.

“Oh, uh, yes,” she answers, forcing herself to grin once more.  “Fred and I are very excited.”

She ignores the guilt churning in her gut.  She has nothing to be guilty about.  She’s here on a mission to help her sister.

“I’m very happy for you, miss,” the servant says, and this time, the smile Amy gives her is genuine.

“Thank you so much,” she answers.

The servant quickly ushers her in, apologizing for keeping her outside as Amy assures her it’s alright.  She doesn’t notice the person standing just inside the foyer.

“Amy March?  Is that you?”

She turns towards the source of the voice and finds Mr. Laurence looking at her, his eyes bright with surprise and warmth.

“Mr. Laurence,” she answers, walking over to give the old man a hug.

“I know I saw you at dinner last night,” he tells her, “but it feels like it’s been ages.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” she agrees, embracing the man for a moment longer before they separate.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?  What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for Laurie, in fact,” she says, and she’s proud of herself for how smoothly his name leaves her lips.

“Oh,” Mr. Laurence says, making brief eye contact with the servant over Amy’s shoulder.  “He’s here, but I don’t know if he’s feeling alright today.  I don’t know if he’s up to having visitors.”

She frowns, worry beginning to grow inside her.  Worry for Laurie.  It must be bad if even his grandfather is making excuses for him.

“Yes,” Amy begins.  “I’ve heard he hasn’t been feeling well lately.  Jo told me.  She’s the one who sent me, actually.  To check on him while she’s gone.”

“Oh.  Well, then, by all means,” he says, standing back so she can make her way further inside.  He motions towards the back of the house.  “He’s in the study, I believe.”

She smiles, at both Mr. Laurence and the servant, and then excuses herself.  She can feel their eyes on her as she walks away, and she hopes they don’t see the way she’s beginning to shake.

She turns a corner and then another one, surprised at how well she still knows the house.  Finally, the door to the study appears in front of her.  She tests the doorknob, and finds it unlocked.  She decides to knock anyways.  She does, once, and then opens the door.

The room is dark, and she hears a groan from the far end of the room.

“Grandfather, I don’t - “

“Do I look like your grandfather?”

She waits, but gets no response.  Sighing heavily, she walks into the room and closes the door behind her, heading towards one of the windows, where the thick curtains are pulled together.

“Of course, it would be a miracle if you could see me with how dark it is in here.”

She opens the curtains, bright morning light bursting into the room.  She hears another groan, but ignores it, going to the room’s other windows and opening those curtains as well.

“There,” she says.  “That’s better.”

She takes a deep breath, and scrunches up her nose.

“It smells like alcohol in here,” she announces.  “Have you been drinking already?”

She waits, again, for an answer.  He doesn’t speak, though, and she turns towards him without thinking.

Their gazes lock, and her heart lurches.

He’s too beautiful, she decides immediately.  Too beautiful for someone who’s drunk at ten in the morning, whose hair is sticking up in twenty different directions, and whose eyes are squinted into tiny slits, trying to adjust to the sudden light as they stare up at her in some mix of confusion and wonder.

“Well, are you just going to stare at me like a fool, or are you going to say something?” she asks him, already beginning to fidget under his gaze.  She looks around the room for a distraction, and spies two empty bottles on the table in the center of the room.

“I can’t believe you’re drunk.  It’s ten o’clock .”

“I’m not drunk.”

His voice is heavy and sleepy and gruff.  It sends shivers down her spine, and she does her best to ignore them, going over and picking up the bottles.

“Those are from last night,” he mumbles quickly.  “What is going on?”

She doesn’t answer, instead examining the bottles in her hands, running her fingers over the smooth glass.

“Amy.”

She closes her eyes, lets the sound of him saying her name permeate her ear drums for one moment before she pushes it away and turns around.

His eyes are wide now, and they don’t leave her face.  She drops her gaze to the floor, twists her foot into the wood.

“What’s going on?” he asks again.

“What, I can’t come visit my brother-in-law?”

“Amy,” he says lowly, the seriousness of his inquiry seeping into his voice.

“I’m not here for you,” she says sternly, reminding herself in the process.  “I’m here for my sister.”

“I thought we decided it would be best for everyone - your sister included - if we pretended the other didn’t exist.”

She scoffs.

“I never said that.”

“Not in so many words, maybe.  But the idea holds.”

“Well, things change,” she tells him.  “I’m here to repair your marriage.”

He barks out a laugh and gets up, walking over to where she’s standing.  He takes the bottles out of her hands and sets them back on the table, and then brings his hand to her chin, lifting her head up.  Still, she doesn’t look at him.

“I don’t think even you, Amy March, can do that.”

She moves from his grasp.

“I can,” she declares boldly.  “I will.”

“And what makes you think repairing my marriage is your responsibility?”

“Jo, apparently,” she murmurs.  “She sent me, after all.”

“Josent you - you- to repair our marriage?”

“I don’t know how else you want me to say it.”

He laughs, throwing his head back.  She frowns, and crosses her arms in front of her.

“This isn’t funny, Laurie.”

“I know,” he says, still through a fit of laughter.  “I know, I swear.  But you have to admit, of all the ironies in all the history of all the world -“

"I don’t have to admit anything,” she tells him, cutting him off.  “And I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.  It’s not like that anymore.  We’re not even friends.”

“I agree,” he says.  “Which is why, again, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Jo thinks you’re lonely.  She wants me to keep you company when she’s gone,” she explains simply.

“And when was this decided?”

“Yesterday, before she left.”

“Ah,” he sighs.  “That’s why you were so distant at dinner.”

Her brow furrows, and she finally looks at him.  He’s staring back at her, hands in his pockets, hair still sticking up, still looking a bit confused.

“I’m always distant at dinner,” she says.

“Yes, but there was something different yesterday.  You seemed almost…scared.”

“Well, I’m not scared anymore.”

She’s lying, and she gets the sense that he knows she’s lying.  But he doesn’t say anything, just hums, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“You look terrible,” she lies again.  “Did you sleep in your clothes last night?”

“I…dozed in my clothes, yes.”

“What does that mean?” she asks.  She looks him over, noticing the bags under his eyes.  “You didn’t sleep last night?”

He shrugs, and she rolls her eyes.  She goes over to him, taking him by the arm and leading him towards the door to the study.

“Sleep,” she instructs him.  “And then clean yourself up.  Come over for dinner this evening.  And don’t make me come looking for you.”

They stop in the doorway, and he turns towards her.  She looks him over, sees that a button on his waistcoat is undone.  She reaches out to fix it without thinking, and he grabs her wrist.

“Laurie,” she murmurs.  “I’m not -”

But before she can finish, he pulls her towards him, wrapping his arms around her.

And she should pull away.  But she tells herself it’s just a hug - a truce, of sorts, to begin their budding friendship - and leans into him, pressing her face into his shoulder.

“You smell,”  she tells him, the stench of alcohol strong in her nostrils once again.  “Make sure you bathe.”

He laughs, and she can feel the rumble of it in his chest.  Oh,how she’s missed him.

“I’m not here for you,” she repeats against his clothes, trying to remind them both.

“I know,” he murmurs, a tinge of sadness in his voice.

He runs his hand over her hair, and she closes her eyes.

a/n: sorry i’m so long-winded buuuut:

- i adore jo. amy is my favorite, obviously, but i absolutely adore jo. and i love jo and amy’s dynamic. so while that scene didn’t have any laurie in it, i loved writing it all the same.

- that being said, this is a safe space for jo and lovers of jo.

- that also being said, this story is going to get very, very messy, in maybe some ways that might even be surprising, so just….be ready for that.

there you have it! leave comments or kudos if you feel so inclined. i hope to have the next chapter up sometime relatively soon.

as always, thank you so, so much for reading!

xoxo,

rebekah

champagne problems

title: champagne problems

fandom: little women

pairing: theodore laurence x amy march

rating: g

summary: she feels someone place their hand on her shoulder, and she knows it’s him, even without looking. for a moment, she considers fleeing instead of turning around, but she abolishes the thought. it would be nonsensical; she has nothing to be ashamed of. nothing to regret. she made her choice, and he made his. and now he is happy, and she is happy for him.

she turns, and there he is, towering over her, as he always had. she looks him over from head to toe - he’s still in the suit he wore for the wedding, although his hair is tousled and out of place and his eyes are shining instead of tired because he’s had slightly too much to drink - and he’s so beautiful.

(after his wedding, laurie asks amy to dance with him.)

author’s note:  hi again! thank you so much for the overwhelming response to my last story; it’s definitely inspired me to write more about these two kids. this is not the angsty piece i was speaking about in my last author’s note, but alas, this one is very angsty as well. consider yourself warned. if it makes you feel better, i have an extremely fluffy amy x laurie fic about halfway done and plan to post it soonish!

hope you like this, even if it makes you sad. i felt sad when i was writing it, too. :(

(there’s a giant author’s note at the end of this - be warned - but it has some fun tidbits in it about this and also i ask a question that i’d love some answers to.)

champagne problems

He doesn’t dance with her during the wedding. 

In fact, she thinks he danced with every girl - young and old - in attendance at the celebration, except her.  After all, it’s his wedding; everyone wants a dance with the happy groom.

(That’s what he is - happy.  Happy, married, and not hers.)

It’s better that way, she knows.  Just as it’s better that they haven’t spoken alone since Europe, not really.  Still, it hurts her.  It reminds her of Meg’s wedding, when she was young and wide-eyed and full of dreams that hadn’t been crushed yet.  Hopelessly in love with him, of course, but resigned to the fact that he was Jo’s.  It had almost been easier, then.  To want him from afar, to love him when there was no possibility of him loving her back.  It hurt less, somehow.

That day, he hadn’t danced with her either.  She watched as he danced with Marmee, with her sisters - Jo, of course, but also with Beth and Meg.  She remembers her heart leaping every time he came near her, hoping that he was finally going to pull her out into the open space in their yard and sway her back and forth, but he was always on his way to someone or something else.  It broke her heart, but she hid it well.  She was used to him always looking away when all she wanted was for him to look at her.

He hadn’t danced with her.  It was an regrettable oversight on his part, he said when she’d teased him about it once in Paris.  He’d begged her forgiveness, trying to get on his knees in front of her, and she’d shoved him away playfully with a roll of her eyes.  He’d gotten up, and stared at her for a moment too long in a way she didn’t understand.  Didn’t let herself understand.  Or perhaps she’d just forgotten the meaning of it when it came to him.

(He’d make her understand it, only one week later.  And she’d push him away, throw out another one of her childhood wishes.)

He hadn’t danced with her, and he hadn’t danced with her now, either.  And she tries to push away the pain of it, but it lingers in the pit of her heart.  It lingers, piles up alongside every other hurt that has inched its way inside her since she’d left him in that garden in France.

She wanders around the grand hall they’d secured for the event.  It’s very late, or maybe extremely early - she doesn’t know.  The other guests left hours ago, and the servants are cleaning up around her.  She walks towards one of the long tables, the remnants of delicious sweets and hors d'oeuvres left on shining, silver platters littering the white tablecloth.  She’s about to reach for a stray chocolate when she feels someone place their hand on her shoulder.

She knows it’s him, even without looking.  For a moment, she considers fleeing instead of turning around, but she abolishes the thought.  It would be nonsensical; she has nothing to be ashamed of.  Nothing to regret.  She made her choice, and he made his.  And now he is happy, and she is happy for him.

She turns, and there he is, towering over her, as he always had.

She looks him over from head to toe - he’s still in the suit he wore for the wedding, although his hair is tousled and out of place and his eyes are shining instead of tired because he’s had slightly too much to drink - and he’s so beautiful.  It makes tears well in her eyes, but she uses every ounce of her strength to blink them back and cast him a disapproving look.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, trying her best to seem disinterested.  “Shouldn’t you be with Jo?”

He looks down at her, raises an eyebrow.

“Would you rather I go be with Jo?”

“Yes,” she says sternly.  “She’s your wife.”

“And you say that like it’s such a bad thing.”

“No I don’t!” she exclaims too loudly - too defensively - and she cringes as the sound echoes throughout the empty hall.  A few servants turn to look at her, but then they’re on their way.

“Laurie,” she says, nearly whispering her words now.  “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but leave.  Go to Jo and just…leave.”

She turns away again, and goes to leave the room - perhaps she’ll finally go to her room and retire for the evening.  But again, he grasps her shoulder.

“What, Laurie?” she nearly groans, exasperated.  She’s avoided him quite adeptly since they’d returned home, and she doesn’t know why he still isn’t getting the message.  He’s married now, and she will be soon, and they can’t - she can’t - be around him like this anymore.  Not with the way her heart aches every time she so much as thinks of him.  She can’t, and she’s about to turn and tell him so, the audience of servants be damned, when he speaks.

“You don’t think I’d let another wedding pass without asking you to dance, do you?”

Her breath catches in her throat.

She turns around slowly, and suddenly, she can’t help herself.  She’s sixteen again, and a smile spreads itself across her lips.

“You remembered,” she murmurs.

He scoffs playfully, reaching out and taking one of her hands in his, leading her to the center of the room.  The servants still walk around them, but he’s the only person she can see.

“Of course I remembered.  How could I forgetafter the way you scolded me in Paris over Meg’s wedding?”

“Oh, hush,” she tells him, elbowing him in the ribs as he walks beside her.  “It wasn’t all that.”

“Hm, if I remember correctly, it was all that, indeed.”

And before she can protest, he turns towards her, bowing slightly and holding out his hand.  Her words die in her throat.

“My lady,” he murmurs, quiet enough that only she can hear.

She inhales slowly, trying to steady herself, and then curtsies elegantly before reaching out and placing her hand in his.

“My lord,” she whispers.

But she doesn’t think he hears her.  He’s staring at the back of her hand quite intently, and she’s about to ask him what’s the matter when he presses his lips to her knuckles.

The beat of her heart skips.

No, she wants to tell him.  No.  The kiss lingers for too long and his mouth is too soft and gentle, and she wants to scream at him, wants to yank her hand from him and push him away.  She should do that; she should leave him and retire to her room and forget any of this ever happened.

But her mouth is dry and her throat is tight, and it seems she’s lost her ability to move.  Not even when he finally stands up straight does she regain her senses, and he all but lifts her into his arms, cradling her against his body.

They begin to sway, slowly, rather than dance.  His arms are around her, and her face and hands rest on his chest.  She closes her eyes.  Her ear is right above his heart, and she can hear its beat - slightly faster than normal, but steady.  She can feel how his ribs rise and fall as he takes deep, slow breaths.

“It’s better this way,” she murmurs, finally, after long minutes of silence, as she regains her bearings.

“Is it?” he asks, and she feels the words rumble in his chest.

“Yes,” she tells him, lets herself linger against him for a moment longer before she pulls back, putting some space between them, but remaining close enough that she can feel the heat of his body as he holds her.

“Yes,” she repeats, lifting her chin so she can look at him.  But he’s staring over her head, eyes dark and stoic.  “Laurie, you love her.  You love her, as you’ve always loved her.  And you’ll be happy with her.  This is what everyone expected.  And it’s what you always wanted.  What you longed for.”

She can feel the pressure of tears behind her eyes, but she steadies herself and finds the strength to hold them back, clears her throat so her voice doesn’t shake.

“Laurie and Jo,” she says, telling him what she’s known since she was thirteen.  “It’s always been Laurie and Jo.  It always will be.”

“In Paris - “ he begins.

“Paris wasn’t real,” she interrupts abruptly.  “It wasn’t.  This is real, Laurie.  This is home.  Concord.  This is what matters.  This is the way it was meant.”

And she stops, looks down, because her voice cracks on the last word and she has to squeeze her eyes shut for a few moments to keep moisture from falling.

His hand reaches up and grabs her chin, and she can feel him tug on it, trying to get her to look at him.  She takes one more breath, and then lifts her head.

He stares at her, his eyes searching her face, his expression soft and caring.  She stares back, her eyes pleading him to accept this, to move on and forget.

“And what about you, Amy?” he asks.

She looks away abruptly, and hates the way she can feel a blush crawling over her skin.

“I’m marrying Fred.  You know that.  He’ll be back from London in a month and then it won’t be long after that.”

She can feel Laurie’s narrowed eyes on her, but she continues in spite of it.

“Fred is more than serviceable,” she tells him, and he scoffs.

“Is that the main quality a proper woman is supposed to look for in a husband?  Serviceable?  Oh, pardon me, I forgot one thing - he’s rich. Rich and serviceable.”

The part of her that doesn’t want to burst into tears wants to hit him.  Laurie is often mean when he’s angry, and she remembers the way he had mocked her at the New Year’s party in France - mocked Fred - and how she’d felt the exact same way.  And she might fight him now, if she wasn’t so tired and sad.

As it is, she just presses on.

“Yes, he’s rich.  But he’s also kind, and responsible, and respected, and thoughtful, and he’ll make a fine husband.  I’ll be fine, Laurie.  I like Fred.”

She doesn’t love him yet.  She tells herself she will in time.

“That makes one of us,” Laurie quips, and she can’t resist rolling her eyes.

“Fred is supposed to be your friend.  I don’t know why you’ve taken to hating him so.”

“He’s marrying the woman I -”

“Stop!” she says, cutting him off before he can finish.  Her voice is loud enough that a few servants look their way curiously again, and she winces, waiting a moment before talking again.

“You can’t talk like that,” she tells him for what seems like the millionth time, nearly begging him at this point.  “You can’t.  You’re married - to my sister - and you can’t say those kinds of things.  Not before, and most certainly not anymore.”

“I know,” he says quietly, surprising her.  She looks up, but he’s staring down at his feet, his expression somber, almost wounded.  “I know.  I’m sorry.”

He’s sincere, she can tell, and it softens her.  She knows it’s hard for him.  It’s hard for her, too.  And he looks so sad and helpless that she can’t help but reach out to him, tucking a stray lock of dark, mussed hair behind his ear.

He turns his head slightly.  His nose brushes against her wrist, and she feels the rush of air as he inhales her.  She shivers, and she watches his eyes squeeze shut tightly before he opens them and gazes at her.

“Everything will be better this way,” he says, but it comes out sounding more like a question than a simple statement.

“Yes,” she nods, looking at him as his eyes search hers for reassurance.  “Everything will be better, and everyone will be happier.  It was meant this way.”

“It was meant this way,” he repeats, and even though she’d said the same words only a moment before, hearing himsay it breaks her heart all over again.

Laurie and Jo.  It’s always been Laurie and Jo.

“Go to Jo.  Meg should’ve stopped fussing with her by now.” she tells him, trying to smile and ignore the way she’s falling apart inside.  “She’s probably waiting for you.”

“Yes,” he says, looking away from her.  “Yes, I will.”

“And I should be retiring to my room.  It’s very late, and I want to wake up early and write Fred in the morning.”

“Yes,” he says again, nodding slightly.

They stop talking.  Yet, neither makes an effort to part ways.  His arms tighten around her.  She leans into him, until she’s cradled against his chest once more, her ear over his heart.

And they breathe together as they sway back and forth.

a/n: a few notes about this:

- it has ALWAYS bothered me that they don’t show laurie dancing with amy at meg’s wedding in the 2019 version of little women. it’s one of the few criticisms i have of the movie. he dances with literally e v e r y o n e else, but not her. what the actual f.

-this is actually only a glimpse into a much, much bigger laurie x amy story (saga?) that exists only in my head. everything in the 2019 movie is canon up right up to when laurie asks amy to marry him in the garden, and she says no. in this version, she then says yes to fred vaughn, and when they come home after beth’s death, laurie reads jo’s letter and then asks her again, and jo says yes.

-speaking of glimpses, i’m never going to write that entire story down, but i do have more scenes like this one in my head that i might be interested in writing. would anyone be interested in reading them? the story, ultimately, ends up with laurie and amy finding their way back to each other, so it definitely gets v messy in the middle in regards to emotional infidelity etc. i know some people don’t like that. let me know if you’d be interested in more scenes.

- in an extended version of this scene, laurie starts humming since the two of them don’t have any music and when amy asks what song it is, laurie tells her he wrote it in paris (when he was falling in love with her, of course.) i really wanted to put that in somewhere but it was getting a little too long and i couldn’t find a good place to put it.

- i listened to an extended version of bookstore from the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind soundtrack while i was writing. i watched that movie the other day (it’s my all-time favorite) before i started writing this. blame the movie, not me, for the angst.

- yes, the title is referencing the tswift song. it’s my favorite off evermore, and it always screamed laurie x amy au angst! to me, even though it can be more obviously linked to laurie x jo. anyways tl;dr - everything belongs to laurie x amy, sorry i don’t make the rules.

- i make a very vague allusion to a moment from another one of my favorite otps in this fic. if you can figure out who they are, i’ll be impressed.

if you’re here, i applaud you for reading all of that. i love you all! :)

xoxo,

rebekah

title:passing afternoons
fandom: little women
pairing: theodore laurence x amy march 
rating: m
summary: “did you have any dalliances after me?” she asks.

he blinks hard as his brain reels for a moment, as he struggles to comprehend what she’s saying. after her? there is no after her. there never will be.

then, he stops. thinks. she means…oh. oh.

she means after that time in the garden, in paris. when he’d first revealed his feelings for her, and she’d rejected him. left him standing there alone and feeling like an utter, hopeless idiot.

oh.

(laurie and amy spend a late summer afternoon talking about the past.)

author’s note: i’ve literally shipped laurie and amy since like fourth grade. so when i saw little women (2019) and found out it did my bbs justice, i basically cried. i’ve been meaning to write fic ever since, but alas, here we are almost a year later. i hope you enjoy it anyways.

i have another fic in the works that’s longer and definitely more angsty, which i hope to post relatively soon. i also hope to write more fluff (also maybe smut???) for them in the coming months bc GOD i just love imagining these two together. in the meantime, i hope you enjoyed this!

xoxo,
rebekah

passing afternoons

They enjoy being lazy after sex.

They’re not always afforded the opportunity, of course.  At night, they tend to fall asleep rather quickly afterwards, exhausted and sated and tangled together.  And the occasional forbidden interlude - when they’re some party or gathering wholly bland or pretentious and the two of them (sometimes tipsy, sometimes bored, always and perpetually desperate for each other) run off to some dark corner or isolated room where he lifts the skirt of her dress and the too-many layers underneath and uses his body to press hers against the wall as he sinks into her from behind and they pray their moans and the sounds of their bodies together won’t be heard - must be short and altogether swift, no time to dwell in the aura of the sensations and feelings between them.

But then, there are days when Grandfather is occupied with the business and the Marches are busy and they dismiss the servants.  It’s just the two of them in their grand house with time that seems to stretch on and on.  Sometimes they’ll make it a game of sorts, shamelessly flirt and tempt each other to see who will break first, but oftentimes they’ll share a look and a smile and then they’re off in a race to their horizontal surface of choice.

Today is one of those days, when they’ve nowhere to be, nothing to do, and are all alone.  It’s an unusually hot day in late September, and when Amy had complained about the warmth, he’d suggested she take her blouse off.  She’d raised an eyebrow and told him to go first, and then one thing led to another and now they’re naked and sore and satisfied, laying on their bed as the early afternoon sun shines in through their open windows.

He lays on top of the sheets on his back, head at the foot of the bed and hands on his stomach, staring up at the ceiling and trying to find imaginary patterns in swirling paint.  She lays parallel to him, but leans against the headboard, her long blonde hair falling around her face as she sketches him.  He hadn’t seen her take out the pad and pencil she keeps in the dresser near their bed, but he can hear the sound of graphite moving against paper as she draws.  He grins as he imagines her face, lips pursed and brow furrowed, wide green eyes focused and the movement of her hand knowing nothing but purpose even with the most casual of sketches.

They do not touch and do not talk.  Still, the intimacy of the situation - of being together and completely safe and comfortable with the person you love most in the world - is overwhelming.  Its warmth cocoons him, and he feels his eyes getting heavy as he lies there, a breeze blowing in from the open window and caressing his skin.

“You had your many dalliances after Jo, yes?”

His eyes snap open when he hears her question, his stomach lurching slightly and his mood dampening.

He ran away to Europe and drowned himself in alcohol, drugs, and women after Jo broke his heart, and he admits this.  Amy knows it, too.  And it’s not that he’s ashamed of that period of time, exactly - while he wishes he had, indeed, bore it better, he finds himself sympathetic to the plight of people scorned by love, however misguided that love might be.

He just doesn’t often talk about it.  Doesn’t like to.  In his mind and in his heart, it is only Amy.  Has always been, and always will be.

Amy doesn’t really like to talk about it, either.  He finds her inquiry curious, but answers anyway.

“Yes,” he tells her, although the word comes out sounding more like a question than an answer.

He waits for her to explain her line of thought, but she simply hums to herself.  He stares at the ceiling a moment longer, then leans up, resting his weight on his elbows.

She’s staring down at her drawing, her face just as he pictured it, pencil grasped between her lips as she swipes her thumb against the paper.  He watches as she takes the pencil out of her mouth and starts at it again, and he watches her for nearly a minute before opening his mouth to speak.

She beats him to it, though.

“Did you have any dalliances after me?” she asks.

He blinks hard as his brain reels for a moment, as he struggles to comprehend what she’s saying.  After her?  There is no after her.  There never will be.

Then, he stops.  Thinks.  She means…oh.  Oh.

She means after that time in the garden, in Paris.  When he’d first revealed his feelings for her, and she’d rejected him.  Left him standing there alone and feeling like an utter, hopeless idiot.

Oh.

He shifts on the bed, drops his eyes from her face.  He can feel his skin begin to flush from embarrassment.

They’ve never talked about this before.

Not that there’s much to talk about, he supposes.  He still hesitates to tell her - not because he fears she’ll be angry with him, but because he doesn’t like to talk about it.  If it were up to him, he would erase from his mind the memory of every woman he’d ever been with until only his wife remained.

But she’s asked, and he’ll be honest with her.

“One, I suppose,” he murmurs.

“Yousuppose?” she questions.  She’s still staring down at her artwork, but her pencil doesn’t move.

“Sort of, yes,” he confirms.

She finally looks at him, her eyebrows pulled together and a frown on her face.

“How do you sort of have a dalliance?”

She looks genuinely confused, and he laughs lightly at the crease between her brows, sits up fully and reaches out to her.  He cups her face and uses his thumb to rub at the wrinkle of skin.

“Shall I explain?” he asks her.

She nods.

“I…tried to be angry after you left.  Just think - to be turned down by not just one, but two March girls!” he gasps playfully, and she snickers, pushing against his shoulder playfully before dropping her hand to run over the sparse hair on his chest.

“But?” she prompts.

“But I couldn’t make myself angry.  Not at you.  But I also knew I couldn’t just stay there in France and watch you and Fred Vaughn…”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and she rolls her eyes playfully.

“We’re speaking of all your affairs, and you want to tease about Fred?”

“It’s part of my story!” he insists with a wink, and she rolls her eyes again.

“Well, keep telling it.”

He smiles, and continues.

“I couldn’t stay, so I did what you told me to.  I went to London, as you know.  And when I first got there, there was a woman staying at the same hotel as I was.  We got to talking one evening at dinner, and one thing…”

He trails off, feeling himself flush again.

“…led to another,” Amy finishes.  “I understand.  I don’t need the details.”

She’s frowning now, even though her fingers still run over his chest, and he despises it.  He has half a mind to drop the subject, to kiss her lips and make her happy and forget life before, but he can’t.

“Wait, I’m not done.”

“Laurie, I don’t need to hear any more.  You had your dalliance, I’m not upset, and we can stop - “

“I couldn’t do it,” he interrupts.  “It didn’t work.”

She pulls back from him slightly, her eyes wide and curious.  She looks down his body.

“You mean you couldn’t…?”

He follows her gaze, and then snorts.

“Not like that.  It - it didn’t even get to that.  Amy, my dear.”

He lifts her chin, and she gazes at him.  He can tell she’s still confused.

“Every time I closed my eyes,” he explains, “I saw you - the face you made in the garden before you turned away and left.  It broke my heart.  It still breaks my heart.  And when my eyes were open, all I could think about was how her skin wasn’t as soft and her hair wasn’t as fair and her eyes were brown instead of green and she just…wasn’t you.”

“But with Jo…”

“It was different with Jo.  I could make Jo into anyone.  I could always pick out the tiniest thing that reminded me of her, in any woman, and then pretend that woman was her.  I couldn’t…do that with you.  Or maybe I didn’t want to.  In any case, being with that woman didn’t make me forget.  She made me remember all the more.  And I only kissed her for about a minute before I realized it was worthless.”

He stops and grabs one of her hands, brings it to his mouth so he can kiss her fingertips, before holding it over his heart.

“And that’s when I knew that this was different.  You weren’t Jo, and I wasn’t going to be able to just…drink and fuck you away.”

She’d normally gasp and swat him playfully for his use of the coarse word, but now she stays silent and presses her hand more firmly against his chest.

“I was in love with you.  Hopelessly and completely.  And I realized that all I could do was stay in London and toil away and… pray that somehow you would change your mind.”

Then, everything had changed.  Beth died, and then he knew he had to be with her.  It didn’t matter if she despised him, or if Fred was there.  He needed to be with her.  But before that, he had been rather resigned to his fate - to work for his grandfather and forever pine after Amy March.

God had smiled upon him, though.  And now, here he sits with his wife, Amy Laurence.  Married, in love, and happy.

“So does that explain how one can have a single, sort-of dalliance?” he asks her.

But she stares at him, eyes shining, almost with tears.

“You were going to wait your whole life for me?” she whispers.

He smirks slightly, turning away from her and shrugging, somehow embarrassed.  But she grabs his face, turns it back to her, and locks their gazes.

“What else would you have me do, my lady?”

“Oh, my lord,” she breathes, and kisses him deeply, until his toes curl and he can feel himself begin to harden once again.  When she pulls away, they’re both panting.  He wants to grab her, to gather her up in his arms again, but her pad and pencil remains between them.

He motions to the picture.

“Still working on that, Raphaella?”

“Maybe later,” she remarks, taking the paper and all but throwing it on the floor beside the bed.  She pushes him back so he’s laying once again, and climbs on top of him, straddling his waist.  “I have another idea how we can pass time this afternoon.”

She leans down and kisses his smiling mouth.

Yes, God had smiled upon him.  Had given him back his love.  And he’s married, in love, and happy.

Achinglyhappy.