A/N: A great big thank you to all who reviewed, your words mean alot to me, truly (even if I don't reply you personally because I always barely find enough energy after school/work to tend to urgent errands). As a token of my gratitude, I tried to churn out a longer chapter for you all.

Personally not too happy with it myself, but I figured that I needed to update soon, and this is what I've managed to come up with.

Disclaimer: LMA's genius, not mine.

Too Much of a Gentleman

Friends and Lovers

She was avoiding him; blatantly and with a gusto so essentially Jo, that he'd grudgingly conceded to her avoidance -albeit temporarily.

However, her spike-rimmed fortress gradually receded with the passing days. Whether or not it was a conscious move on her part, he picked up on it immediately and moved in for his ambush, as she lay resting in the March garden one afternoon.

Her book - a well-worn paperback of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing -lay face-down, apparently abandoned for the warm sunshine, as the owner of said book basked in the warm rays of the sun.

Her eyes were closed, and there was some sort of peaceful, subtle contentedness underlying the contours of her mien: it was an expression he'd once often been graced with back in the days, one that had been traded for little indiscernible frowns and carefully-donned masks of vagueness.

So he stopped a few strides from where his literary neighbour reclined unsuspectingly, to take in the sight, half-heartedly attempting to suppress the concoctions of a foolishly fanciful mind:

Jo, eyes opening upon the telltale rustle of his approaching footsteps, smiling happily up at him as loving arms opened for an embrace.

And further

Jo, head bent over a book, reading aloud the novel in her trademark flair to the child perched in her lap. And as he wandered over to their spot, twin pairs of dark eyes would dart upon his figure, following which, simultaneous greetings, tinged with affection,

"Father!"

"Teddy!"

His breath caught.

Then he shook his head with an internal sardonic chuckle, stepping forth to settle beside his girl.

"Hello, Jo."

Jo started, a sinking dread sending a barely perceptible shudder down her spine.

Awkwardly, she pushed herself up into an upright position, and was contemplating making an escape, when he halted her train of thought with a single word;

"Don't," uttered lowly, underlying a multitude of emotions and meanings.

She couldn't begin to comprehend their implications-wouldn't, but understood enough to see reason in abandoning her half-formed plans of avoidance. She had to face him sooner or later.

Deflating momentarily in defeat, she folded her legs, Indian-style and angled her face away in subtle protest, one hand twisted into the folds of her skirt and the other resting on the grass, ready to boost herself off-if she decided against staying, after all.

They sat in a silent impasse for a whole minute before two voices started in unison.

"Ted-"

"Jo-"

And dark gazes caught and held as they turned to face each other-barely friends, not quite lovers, but somewhere in between.

It was Laurie who broke the moment, letting out a humourless bark of laughter.

Jo supposed she could see the irony of their situation, so closely resembling one of their childhood plays, yet so vastly different. And yet, they'd acted out so many scenes similar to this, that it seemed like all she had to do was stand up, brush off her skirt, and offer him a hand up before they'd go tripping down the lane for one of their usual rambles.

"This isn't one of our plays anymore, Jo."

She glanced up at his voice in mild surprise, before looking away again. Of course, they'd been friends for far too long, that they'd go down the same vein of thought as well shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, a bout of desperation of unknown origin surged to her throat, and the words burst forth in a jumble, "Teddy, please."

It seemed as if with those three syllables, a floodgate triggered within her-a paroxysm of thoughts and words built up from the past days of ignoring and hiding, some of which she'd never thought she'd tell anyone, much less him.

"I don't want to do this anymore-I can't stand not being friends with you. Why can't we go on just like we were?" A deep breath, then quieter, "I do love you, my boy, but not the way you're imagining it. I'm not," a gulp, " in love with you."

Then she found herself clasped against him, cheek against chest, head tucked beneath his chin, as one arm snaked desperately around her waist and the other found its way to the nape of her neck, trapping her in some frantic embrace.

"You can though, can't you? With enough time...I'll wait however long it takes if it means you'll be with me."

She felt rather than heard the tortured plea as he exhaled it fervently into her hair; and her breath hitched, but despite the part of her that ached from the suffering her boy was going through, she knew the direction her next words had to take. It was for the best, for their futures, she reminded herself shakily. However deeply her affection ran at the moment, her fancy would pass, and then he'd be waiting for something that would never be. She couldn't-wouldn't-subject him to a lifetime of false hope: he deserved someone who could guarantee a reciprocation for the heart and soul he was offering in matrimony.

Theodore Laurence was, by nature, an active being. He thrived in the passing of time and the progressing of an activity, always eager and bursting to experience and perceive the unfurling of events. It was a similarity that formed the basis of the connection he shared with Jo: their love for Life and its bustling dynamism. This trait of his once manifested in bratty impatience as a child, but through his acquaintance with the Marches, he developed other more constructive outlets for this innate energy. More importantly, he grew to appreciate the present; to pause, to commit to memory little moments that he would later on draw comfort from in the depths of his mind-most of which, in retrospect, involved a certain harum-scarum March sister.

At that moment, however-with her clasped as close as she'd ever been to him, and the lack of any sort of a struggle on her part-Laurie was torn between crystallising the moment and impatience for it to pass.

It was too easy to pretend away all the heartache, that she'd never rejected him that afternoon-or perhaps that he'd simply not asked then, that he'd gently nudged her along with subtle touches and had eased her into the depths of his affections, and that she was currently grasping onto him as desperately as he was her.

But then her hoarse voice broke the spell. "I can't," and through the embrace, he felt her form convulse in a single trembling, silent sob. "I can't, and I don't want to hurt you anymore." Then she inhaled, seemingly to steel herself, before finishing quietly, "So please, don't get your hopes up on me. You need someone who can."

She had managed to extract herself from her previous position during the denouement of her speech, but his long, pianist's fingers swiftly darted to her slender forearms, imprisoning them in a resolute hold.

"I need you." The words burst vehemently from his lips; plea and retort simultaneously.

She immediately tensed, tugging at her hands fiercely, even as he held on adamantly. Her reply came then, when she realised that he wasn't relinquishing his hold, "Not this way."

He made a decision then-they'd gone on too long like this, and he was tired, and his heart had fluttered and shattered over again to the nuance of her voice, to the spark in her gaze-too many times within the past few weeks. But before he could utter a word, she spoke again, voice beseeching, "Please, Teddy; I'm hurting you, like this."

"Then love me, Jo!"

Their eyes locked, anguish and frustration mirrored perfectly in each others'.

She was the first to break the stare, wrenching her gaze away with a visibly clenched jaw, trying again to shake off his grip, to no avail.

Exhaling noisily, he finally vocalised what he'd resolved to mere seconds ago. "Fine, if that's what you really want, I'll stop." Surprised eyes snapped up to his, but he continued forcefully; "I'll be your sodding friend, and watch you get swept off your feet by some Chaucer-spouting Dandy, and marry him, have five children." And love him, and sleep and wake by side, his added in his mind, bitterly.

Then, to complete her confusion, he released her arms gently.

"Just...once and for all, break my heart properly, won't you?" His voice was overly light, and he knew that they could both detect it. "Tell me to my face to leave you alone forever," he swallowed audibly, "and I will."

A/N: In retrospect, this may be a tad too dramatic for Jo and Laurie in the book's context, but I figured that if Laurie had just held on a little bit longer, he would've had it in him, and if anyone could provoke Jo into such drama it would be Laurie. Thoughts?