Good lord, I can even now hear my generous readers cry. What is this wittering mad woman doing starting another series for the Little Women fandom when she's got two already, one (A Night to Remember) nearing completion? Well, it's pretty much summer for me, which means that I've finally got time on my side to write and write as much as I please. And since I dearly love Jo/Laurie and am rather put-out when people argue that they'd be disastrous in a marriage together because they argue a lot (because marriages must be completely frictionless to be considered decent?), I wanted to start a new series of drabbles and short stories to write about how Jo and Laurie's married life could have gone on, adventures, arguments, child-births, and creative differences included.

There's not too much married!J/L fic out there (although the excellent Rese has some great pieces-- I especially love her 'Fumbling in their Passion') so I thought it would be nice to trace how their life together could have gone from beginning to very end. And although I have twenty snippets planned out, only about 15 of the snippets have definite plans. If you have any ideas for what could be included in this fic, please let me know about them! I could really use the help.

(Incidentally, I also wrote Chapter 7 of the round-robin fic Rigmarole, beta'd/created by the amazing Black Magic Woman. If you're interested in seeing Jo and Laurie come to an understanding about marriage without having either of their hearts broken completely, you might want to check it out. )

So without further ado... let's get to the story already. This has been a very weighty introduction to a tiny beginning fic!

Title: 20 Different Ways to Leap Through the Minuet, Part 1/20
Fandom: Little Women
Series: 20 Different Ways to Leap Through the Minuet
Characters/Pairings: Jo/Laurie, Cast
Rating: K+, Later R for allusions to sexual content
Summary: He has always know that she would be his downfall one of these days; he simply hadn't understood how deeply strange would be the attending circumstance. 20 different looks into Jo, Laurie, and the marriage that could have been.

1.

The first time he dreams of her, he dreams of them dancing like mad men, her right paw propped against his shoulder while her left had been steady in his hand. She is the most brilliant girl he has ever met so far, some strange nymph who had managed to surprise him with warm cries and low laughter, with flakes of feather in her messy dark hair. She has the sort of smile that could light up whole cities, and the gray eyes made to gaze upon them.

She will be something more to him, one day; something brighter and vaster and move beloved yet. But for now she is merely a girl he has gazed at through his windows so many times before, her thin frame alight with an energy barely contained in his arms at the moment. Even in his dreams, she hums with electric and avid energy, until he cannot bring himself to look away from her laughing face and corona of her dark hair.

"I'm Jo March," she says, and everything she says rings with sincerity, so strange, and vibrant, and rare. "And just who were you staring at?"

He tells her a half-truth his very first day, even points out her sister as an attraction so as not to frighten her away at first glance. But the truth is, even then, he has eyes for her and her alone, over and above any one else.

If he was honest, he would have said: Only you, because I think there will only ever be you. But instead he had lied, and for the first time won her hand.

In his dreams, they dance and keep on dancing, together until the end.

Author's Note: As always, I adore and cherish reviews-- they really motivate me to continue on with what I started!

Additionally, I would love it if people could suggest scenarios for me to catapult Jo and Laurie into as married people! I already have them sneaking off into a dance hall with Jo in drag (and you can't imagine what filthy favors she had to promise to get him to help her do that ;), am sketching out how they end up with quite a number of lunatic children (though I promise, they'll stay in the background and not overwhelm!), and am hard at work getting Jo and Laurie to have at least one explosive argument that needs a good resolution. Anyone else have any ideas of what they could do to occupy 40+ years of married time?