She is twenty-one when her best friend asks her to be his wife and she refuses him. Twenty-six years will pass before she faces that choice again.

Half a lifetime of joys and griefs, poverty and prosperity: shaping her from girlhood dreams to the woman she has become, here in what she sees as her autumn. She has borne and raised two fine sons; taught and guided a whole flock of other young lives into maturity. Fame and fortune are hers, old wishes made true by the work she loves. She has shared two decades with the wisest and gentlest of husbands - and buried him, at the last.

In those first weeks of widowhood, she could only think of her life with Fritz; beyond that, nothing. A great emptiness, unimaginable. Now it is all around her, this life after Fritz, and it's by no means empty. A sorrow in itself - that life goes on, full of things she will never share with him.

Her book and her graveyard-garden: they are all she wants this summer. Solitude, or the company of those closest to her.

Her role as Mrs. President of Laurence College is over. The College's turmoil feels remote; although Rob brings her the news of Professor Plock's appointment, it touches her little in the early weeks, and now as the future unfolds there is only a hint that she may be drawn back into College affairs - but not yet.

She writes.

Only sketches, rough words fumbling for the wholeness she seeks to create, but infinitely absorbing. Her time is her own, for the most part, and often she will look up from her desk to find that a morning has flown by, or that evening has turned to midnight.

She drives into town almost every day, if the weather is fine, to add a seedling or see what else can be done, watching sunlight on the beloved graves give way to shadows from a yew-tree to the west. White roses will bloom on Beth's grave this summer, as they have from the first.

There are some dark days, still. Sometimes she'll sit at Fritz's desk, where everything lies just as he left it in February, and send her thoughts back through the years - the only place she can meet him now. She tries to remember every single time she told him she loved him, and knows only that she didn't say it enough.

What shall I do about Bess? she asks him silently.

Memories answer: tiny Bess, the dainty golden fairy, and what a treat her visits were for the Plumfield boys - and girls. Daisy and Nan playing with her, then looking after her when Bess grew old enough to join them at the school. Almost like sisters, to a girl who would never have a sister or brother of her own. Her mother's struggle to conceive - four barren years, then the difficult birth, the one frail child - and nothing more. For all Amy's hopes, she had never carried a second child to life.

Perhaps this memory is what prompts Jo to consider Bess's health when they meet outside the church that Sunday, two days after the disaster with Dan.

Bess, on her handsome husband's arm, looks pale and subdued. Her own heart aching at that forlorn look, Jo kisses her niece and shakes hands with James MacKenzie, the man Bess married last summer - for better, for worse...

"Do join us this Friday," she urges. "You cannot always be too busy to dine?"

"Well, I've a lot to learn, Mrs. Bhaer! But I will own that I hadn't wished to intrude - in your time of mourning, a stranger..."

"Part of the family now, my boy - you can start by calling me 'Aunt Jo'! - and we should all like to know you better. Please come."

He bows, smiling acceptance and glancing at Bess, who shows no sign of having heard. Jo is struck by the contrast in him then. A strong, confident young man - "courage, character, good head for business," Laurie had written last year - but when he looks at Bess he reminds Jo of the little boys worshipping their Princess, years ago. It's as if she is some infinitely lovely ornament which he fears to break. Not a flesh-and-blood woman, a wife.

She makes an excuse and draws Bess away toward another figure in the small crowd at the church-door. Before seeing what else may be done, it would be sensible to make sure that there's nothing amiss with the girl's health, at least.

Dr. Anne Harding is in her Sunday best, the moss-green dress trimmed with black braid; a tall, striking woman with an air of authority and warm dark eyes.

"Mother Bhaer," she says, greeting Jo with a kiss. "You look so much better today!"

"Thank you, I am... But I wanted to ask you - that is, Bess dear, would you let Nan look you over, just to see that you're quite well? As a favor to me?"

Bess nods, murmuring assent - so listlessly that sharp-eyed Nan draws closer and takes her hand, looking ready to begin the examination at once.

"Why, my precious girl, what's the matter?" She touches Bess's pale cheek lightly with one gloved finger. "I'll come and see you tomorrow - of course I will."

She does, and stops at Plumfield afterward to reassure Jo that nothing is very wrong.

"Fresh air and wholesome exercise, that's my prescription. And I'll bring her a tonic tomorrow - she's been cooped up indoors too long. Don't believe she ever leaves the house, except to see you and Daisy, or to drive into town and buy a new hat. Doesn't she have any women friends? Anyone at the College?"

"No," Jo admits. Bess had always seemed content with her parents and a small circle of loved ones. Always old for her age, not interested in the company of girls who couldn't talk about music and art. Never close to any, save for her cousins Daisy and Josie - and Nan.

"That won't do at all," says Nan briskly. "I'll have to take her out myself."

"Oh, if you would - if it's not too much trouble - "

"Nonsense, I'll enjoy it! And I like to keep busy."

"Not too busy to come to dinner on Friday?"

Jo's impulsive invitation is accepted with delight, although Nan warns that she might have to leave suddenly, should anyone happen to break a leg.

"The telephone - remarkable invention, but the end of all leisure for doctors. Only last Thursday - three o'clock in the morning, that poor woman, three severed fingers..." She shrugs. "I've learned to sleep lightly."

Jo plants sweet peas on all the graves that day, and comes home to write to Dan - hoping the letter will reach him, hoping he's gone back to Montana rather than running off to California or Australia. She tries to write sensibly, not condoning, but reassuring as best she can. If she knows Dan, and she does, he is blaming himself entirely. It hurts to think of him alone with that remorse and shame - if only he had stayed - but he would bolt, of course he would.

She doesn't urge him to return.

After that, it's a great relief to plunge back into drafting another chapter. Fictional people, their fictional troubles.

She doesn't breathe a word about Dan and Bess to anyone, not even Meg. She certainly doesn't write of it to Laurie. She tells him of her novel instead.

It's to have three heroines and two heroes, she writes. And one villain who proves a hero, and one heroine who turns villainess... No, I won't tell you how, since I'm not certain yet myself, and I want you to be at least a little surprised when you read it! (You will read it? Please, Teddy: - if you fail me, I'll not have a reader until it's ready for the publisher. There's no one else who... well, please do say yes.) And there's a murder - two murders, perhaps - and a shipwreck, and quite a lot of flirting, and a little fraud...

Seedlings battle through the soil in the graveyard, green leaves reaching for the sun.

James and Nan come to dinner, and again the next week, and again: welcomed to fill the gap left by Dan, and for themselves. Nan is never at a loss for words, while James proves to have a ready laugh and an inexhaustible supply of anecdotes about everything from sailing to Queen Victoria. The quips and repartee fly as Nan and James engage with Jo and Demi, while the quieter members of the party listen with pleasure.

Dear Lord, please don't let Bess's husband take a fancy to Nan: that truly would be the last straw.

Nan, of course, is thoroughly wedded to her career and more than capable of enjoying clever talk with a pleasant man without danger - but what of James?

Jo talks to him about books, doing her best to draw Bess into the conversation as well. After a number of hesitant pauses and leading questions, she succeeds in establishing that they both prefer Thackeray to Dickens - and considers even this crumb an achievement.

Then she catches a shrewd look from Nan, who proceeds to talk to James lightly about music, while also taking care to include Bess. It's discovered that they both prefer Beethoven to Bach - and Nan exchanges another glance with Jo, as if to say: no, I won't ask, but I see what you are doing, and I'm with you.

Bess kisses Jo silently, hugging her a little too hard, and leaves with James.

"That dear girl wants to sculpt me," says Nan the next week. "She swears I have fine bones."

"And so you do, dear."

"Oh, I do - lots and lots. A whole skeleton hanging in my office!"

Jo laughs. "Will you let her?"

"I said I would, if she'll come out bicycling with me. Do her good."

Color begins to bloom in the graveyard, and Jo spends hours there, kneeling on the grass, her hands in the earth and her mind roaming an imaginary world which grows richer with every day.

Three heroines and a shipwreck? Laurie writes. Wild horses couldn't keep me away from it. May the Muses guide your pen, and let genius burn!

The weeks flow into June, with lilacs giving way to roses, and Nan's gig pulls up at the doors of Parnassus to take Bess out walking or bicycling or rowing on the river in the long warm evenings. Jo never knows what confidences they exchange, but it's clear that something is shared. She makes no further attempt to counsel Bess herself. Indeed, Bess may find it easier to talk to Nan: a loving almost-sister, five years older and willing to listen.

July brings Ted home from college. He has done well in his first year, and now he's torn between pride and sadness that his father isn't there to see it.

Jo kisses her tall yellow-haired son fiercely, holding him close, and tells Fritz's memory: They will always love you, our boys. Even long after I'm gone, they will remember. Aren't they splendid?

The day Nan announces that she's been out rowing with both Bess and James, Jo smiles at Bess and says she hopes they had a good time. Inwardly, she's cheering and dancing a jig.

"Well, James and I rowed at first, while she reclined gracefully and gave us both something lovely to look at - " Nan slips an arm around Bess, her voice turning mock-stern: "Enough of that blushing, dearest, you'll not be ashamed of being so pretty, I won't have it... So we stopped for a rest, and then I made Bess take an oar so James could have his turn at reclining as a vision of delight - and no, you'll not blush at having a handsome husband, either. He is, isn't he?"

Bess murmurs something that might be a "yes." Nan rolls her eyes.

Later, July brings two new visitors: Fritz's nephews, Franz and Emil. A tearful meeting at first, of course, but it is so good to see them after all this time - five years since Franz's last visit, soon after his wedding, and over a year since Emil's ship sailed near them - and they spend all day talking, along with Rob and Ted. Franz presents Jo with a whole album of photographs from Hamburg: his wife Ludmilla and their three children. Emil carries only one photograph, close to his heart: Mary and their little boy. She has stayed in England this time, thinking she might be expecting again.

"We have something special for you, Aunty," Emil says as trunks and boxes are carried in.

Franz turns, opening a box in his hands. "A surprise from Uncle Laurie, for your garden - "

She sees three small rose-plants, packed and wrapped with great care.

"He suggested it when he came to Hamburg in April, so we went ahead and did it: these are from Uncle Fritz's home, the very house where he was born and grew up - but it was all Uncle Laurie's idea - "

I cried all over Franz and Emil, right there, she writes, and again when we went to plant them - so you'll know it was perfect, the very thing - however can I thank you, Teddy dear? One of the plants may not last, but the others seem very strong and none the worse for their voyage. And I should add that Bess was there, bringing flowers for Amy - with Nan, they're quite inseparable these days...

Plumfield seems lively again with three additional young men in residence, and the Friday dinners grow: Jo, Rob, Ted, Franz and Emil, Meg, Josie home for the summer, Daisy and Nat, Bess, James, Nan - and Demi with Alice Heath, talking hopefully of a wedding next year.

The guests linger after dinner, sitting outdoors to swap stories or make music for each other in the balmy evenings. Demi brings his flute, sharing it with Franz; Nat has his violin, as always; Emil has a batch of new songs from the sea, and Josie sings a few songs from the theater, acting the parts at the same time. Nan, Bess, and James entertain them one evening with a spirited rendition of Three Little Maids From School - even though one little maid is a tenor. The audience applauds wildly, and Bess and James are hand in hand as they take a bow, flushed and laughing.

"Shall you have a holiday this year?" Meg asks James at dinner a week later. "The seashore, perhaps?

He shrugs, with an uncertain glance at Bess. "We hadn't - "

"Amy and Laurie always went to a lovely old place at Rocky Nook..."

James takes a deep breath, turning to Bess. "Would you like that? I could arrange it, all of September if you wish - " And, following Bess's gaze, he turns to Nan. "And you'd like it too, you simply must join us - "

"Do," adds Bess. "Oh, please do!"

"Not a month, I couldn't possibly - but - " She looks from Bess to James, eyes dancing. "Two weeks?"

Pansies bloom in the garden, and daisies, and forget-me-nots. Jo tends the new roses, while coaxing her book into order in her mind. It's a little frightening; she has never written anything this long and complicated before. The hours in the garden are spent pulling weeds out of both soil and story, carefully untangling stems and story-threads.

Here I am in Rome, Jo - and what do you think I've been doing? Yesterday I lunched with a voluble young merchant, shook his hand, and gave him a few addresses in New York. Then I went to the theater, which was very fine, and a supper-party, which was deathly dull. - Then I went back to my rooms and slept and saw Amy again: she was sitting in the parlor, in a blue dress, looking very happy. I knocked at the window and shouted for what seemed like an age, but she never heard me. It's always like that: she looks well, she smiles, and I can't reach her. - But this morning I suddenly got up from the breakfast-table, went to the piano, and started playing a sonata... Hanged if I know why, or how, but I did want to tell someone - tell you.
Teddy
P.S. I'm glad about the roses too.
P.P.S. Can't you have both the railway accident and the earthquake?

Their company shrinks again in September, with Franz and Emil sailing for home, Ted returning to college, Josie to her theater company, Alice to her parents. At one dinner, there are only five of them - but Nan comes back the following week, looking very well after her holiday by the sea.

"Well, how goes it?" Jo asks.

"Swimmingly - in every sense of the word. James is a fish, and a good thing too, or he'd never have kept up with us."

"Has Bess finished sculpting you yet?"

"Not quite. We talked her out of taking the marble to the seashore..."

As the first leaves are falling, the last pieces of the story slip into place in Jo's tall stack of notes and the real writing begins.

It takes her ten days to finish the first chapter - what a difference from writing thirty pages a day - but there is no need for haste now, only a longing to do her very best. She writes out a second copy for Laurie, sends it off, and emerges from her vortex in time to see Bess and James return.

"We could have stayed longer - "

" - but we missed our third wheel," says James, with a nod at Nan beside him, making her and Bess laugh.

Another chapter begun - the days fly past - and ended. The flowers fade, and Jo readies the garden for next spring, talking gently to her memories.

"She's so passionate about things," says Bess, watching Nan grab her coat and hurry out the door. "That's why I like her, I think..."

The telephone has summoned Nan midway through dessert that evening, promising either a cracked skull or a broken arm; the caller is too excited to be certain.

Indeed, she is passionate about many things - women's suffrage, honest government, education, exercise, even the benefits of flannel underclothes and stout shoes - but this will always come first with her: the need to heal, with all her skill and heart.

Another chapter, and with every page the story takes further possession of Jo's soul. She makes it a rule to share two meals with Rob every day, morning and evening, and never misses a Friday dinner - but aside from this, she belongs to the book.

Once, when searching for a phrase, she rises from her desk and goes to the window, stretching her arms above her head. She looks out and sees Bess and Nan walking over the fallen leaves across the lawn, arm in arm, talking quietly together. Bess notices Jo at the window and waves, smiling. She looks rosy and happy again - so different from spring... This very place, Bess with the daffodils.

And no word from Dan in all these long months, no answer to any of Jo's letters.

Nan turns up the collar of Bess's coat against the chill wind, and straightens her hat. They walk on.

The book calls her back.

This is the best work you have ever done, Laurie writes - and she feels the same, but hesitates to say it, or even think it - superstition, perhaps. Yet it warms her heart beyond telling to see those words set down on paper in his bold hand.

Another chapter, and another. Somewhere in that month's vortex is Jo's forty-seventh birthday, and the first anniversary of Amy's death. And then a family dinner doubles as Thanksgiving.

No thanks for the deaths - sister and husband lost in one bitter year... But Fritz, I do give thanks for the garden, and the book. I wish you could read it! I wish you were here. She sits at his desk, lays her head on her arms, and stays there for a long while.

Do you have a title yet? Laurie writes. She does not. So they start calling the book The Vortex - and then she really cannot think of a title, since that one is firmly lodged in her mind. Laurie graciously accepts all blame.

"Only a small party," Bess tells her, between the sixth chapter and the seventh. "Family, friends, a few students who haven't gone home for Christmas - do say you'll come, Aunty!"

Jo promises, unable to resist Bess's smile when she recalls the lost, shattered look of a year ago, and what a dismal Christmas that had been, with Amy dead and Laurie gone. If Bess wants a party now, she shall have one; the book will have to mind itself for an evening.

The long parlor at Parnassus is warm and welcoming that night, decorated with holly and evergreen branches, log fires ablaze.

Displayed in the hall is the new marble bust, completed at last for all to admire: its tilted chin and determined gaze are pronounced very fine, very like. James cannot praise it enough; Bess glows, listening, and hides her blushes against the real Nan's shoulder.

Jo, still uncomfortable with too much society, is content to sit in the music-room with her sister and watch the fun.

"They do look well, don't they?" says Meg. "All of them."

Jo nods, watching James stroll down the hallway with Bess on one arm, Nan on the other: one in white satin and pearls, the other in a gown the color of dark lilacs, amethysts at her neck and wrists.

"Nan's always had a warm heart... always so strong and good, even when she was little Giddy-gaddy at her most impossible. When she loves, she loves deeply..."

They talk of Amy then, sharing tender memories from the early days.

"Is there any sign of Laurie coming home?"

Nan bursts in, looking around wildly. "Mistletoe - right now - oh, bother it!"

There's a bunch hanging in the tall doorway, high above her head; she looks up, and suddenly the elegant young physician in her evening gown is transformed into a ten-year-old hoyden. Only for an instant, but her face is all Naughty Nan as she leaps into the air to secure the coveted plant. Then she smooths her hair, straightens her dress, and sweeps from the room, with a parting nod to her audience.

Meg and Jo look at each other and burst out laughing.

January belongs to The Vortex. Three whole chapters of it.

The chapters fly to Europe, and letters answer them; Laurie is most satisfyingly impatient to know "what happens next," while Jo is equally impatient for his comments, always thoughtful and detailed. They have read each other's work so often over the years - written so many plays and songs and all manner of nonsense together - he knows all her flaws as well as her strengths, and speaks of them plainly. A rare gift, to have such a reader, and she knows how to value it.

One day in February, she writes nothing.

She goes to the graveyard with Rob and Meg, and stands with her head bowed, shivering despite her warmest coat, amidst the slush and mud that cover her garden. She leans on Rob, grieving with him, as they look at the plain headstone and think back to that morning a year ago.

Beloved husband and father of...

It is hard, so very hard, to walk away.

The book is waiting. Another chapter consumes her, and another. The characters talk in her mind, live in her dreams, more vividly than any previous creations; that, in itself, tells her she is doing well. And it feels right - like that first story she wrote after Beth died, so long ago.

The days grow longer. Jo takes up her gardening tools again and sets to work, rejoicing.

And one Friday evening in early April, Bess looks around the dinner table and tells them all that she is with child.

"My dear girl! When...?"

"Late September, Nan says..." Bess looks from Nan to James, and her eyes fill with tears as their hands reach for hers. "Oh, I can't help it - I'm so happy!"

She comes to Jo that evening, before they leave. "Aunty, may I ask a favor? Will you write and tell Papa?"

"Of course, dear - "

"And - and do you think he might - come back, before I..." Bess's voice trembles. "I do miss him so!"

"I'll ask him, Bess. I promise."

"Thank you, Aunty. And - if it's a girl - I'd like to name her for Mamma."

Meg stays behind when the others leave, and the sisters exchange sober looks.

"How much did Amy tell, do you think?"

Jo winces. "Not enough, I fear. I could be wrong - "

Would Amy have told her daughter exactly how difficult Bess's own birth had been? Could Bess be so cheerful, if she knew what might lie ahead of her? Would it be right to tell her, now?

"We can't be certain..."

"Oh yes, we can!" Jo looks up, determined. "We won't tell Bess. But we will tell Nan every ghastly detail either of us can remember. She'll fight like a lioness to keep Bess safe."

My dearest Teddy, she writes. Remember when Rob and Bess were babies, and I bet you a dollar that you'd be a grandparent before me? Well, come home and pay up.

That letter, attached to another chapter of The Vortex, finds him in London. It gives him a sleepless night.

Part of him wants to rush home on the very next ship. Another part seems set to wander forever.

He takes up the new chapter to distract himself, and forgets everything as the story draws him in again. He still can't tell Jo - he lacks the words to tell her how good this is, her Vortex, her masterpiece.

Next morning, he packs up and moves on to Paris again.

It's not such a bad life, being a wealthy traveler in Europe. Everywhere, there are cities he loves - people he knows - amusement, spectacle, conversation, history, art. There is music, always, all the more so since his own gift returned so unexpectedly last summer. There are companions - old friends and new, brief acquaintances and a few fellow-travelers, sometimes. There are women, always - some aiming to marry him, others offering more transient pleasures. He has even accepted some of those invitations over the long months, and would not regret that if it brought genuine healing or release, but it never does. His hollow heart drives him on, and the long farewell never ends.

Even now, he delays. He writes to Bess, sends his love, sends his joy at her news, but makes no mention of a return voyage.

By May he is in Switzerland, haunting the lakes.

My lady, he tells his memories, our daughter is expecting a child herself, and calling for me - I should go. Coward that I am, I cannot. Amy! I can't find you here - and can't face the loss of you there. What shall I do?

He asks this question of the lake at Vevay, under a cloudless sky in June; very like another June, twenty-five years ago, when they made their promises to each other. If he can find her again, anywhere, it should be here.

He plays Mozart for himself that evening, and retires early.

What awakens him is a feather-light kiss, both familiar and strange. He opens his eyes - and she is there, leaning over him with a teasing smile. She looks no more than twenty, as she was when he asked her to marry him.

"Amy!" He looks around, startled - had he fallen asleep on the parlor sofa? It is still light outside, a warm summer evening; the long windows are open, the scent of roses drifting through.

"Shh!" says his wife, a finger to her lips. "I've been working... come and see!"

Still confused, he takes her hand and follows her through this dream - of course, it must be. Her hand is so warm; the last time he touched her, it was cold.

Still smiling, she leads him to her studio and through the door. Now it is the older Amy who faces him, in a plain grey dress and her favorite art-apron. "Look," she says, "it's done! The marble - the surprise for you..."

His dream-hand rises, pulling away the cloth. "It's beautiful," he says.

Amy nods, satisfied. "I think so."

It's Jo. First the woman, as he last saw her - then the marble shifts as he watches, changing her to the talkative tomboy he met all those years ago - and changing back. Older or younger, she wears the half-funny, half-tender expression that tells him when her feelings are most deeply touched.

Amy tidies up her tools and puts them away. She takes off her apron, folds it neatly, and lays it on the table. "I'm done," she says. "I think I'll rest now."

"I tried to find you," he tells her. "I couldn't reach you, ever - "

"I know. You were too unhappy. But that's over..."

He reaches out for her, and she comes into his arms. "I love you, Laurie." She gives him another gentle kiss. "Go home."

Then she steps back, smiles at him, turns, and walks out through the studio door. As it closes behind her, there's a flash of light -

- and he wakes at Vevay, alone.

Next morning, he packs up and leaves for Nice. He will take some roses from there, from Valrosa, when he returns across the sea.

A/N: Thanks for reviewing, everyone! Hi, literaryfreak - yes, this is the same story I wrote for the Yuletide exchange last year; never made it to the end, and 2007 in RL hasn't been very writing-friendly for me. I'm not participating in Yuletide this year, but I've been revising the existing chapters of this WIPpy het melodrama and writing more. Posting here at FFN helps get me back in the groove with it, and any comments are much appreciated.

The name of James MacKenzie is an entirely irrelevant nod to Diana Gabaldon's immortal creation, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. For no reason other than common fangirling.