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Amy wondered why none of the books she'd read had ever mentioned the bit where being pregnant meant feeling horrid and horrible all the time.
"I feel like a whale," she said: an understatement of (ha!) whale-like proportions. As far as she knew, whales were fine being whales. They probably didn't feel like throwing up every morning either.
Laurie said, "You look beautiful," which would have been nice to hear if it hadn't been Laurie's answer to pretty much anything, from entirely fair complaints about her nose to wholly justified worries about her dress.
"I don't feel beautiful." Amy frowned, studying her reflection in the mirror while trying to decide if she should sacrifice another one of her dresses to be let out. "I feel like a whale. Look like one, too."
"No, you don't," Laurie said.
Fred probably would have told her that this was simply something that happened when women got pregnant. It would pass, and then she'd go back to looking and feeling like her usual self again.
He wouldn't have told her she was beautiful, which she wasn't. He wouldn't have argued.
"Don't tell me how I feel." She'd feel better after an argument, she thought. Laurie'd lose, and apologize, and maybe she'd feel bad for yelling at him for a bit, but at least she'd be feeling horrid about something other than this ... thing that was growing inside of her.
(It was going to be a baby, and she was going to love it and take care of it - she was! Only right now, it didn't feel like a baby yet, a little girl or little boy. Right now, it felt like a big, huge lump that was making her miserable.)
Laurie kissed the back of her neck. "I'm not. You know that's not what I meant, Ames."
"Then what did you mean?" Amy asked, hating him a little for slithering away, for refusing to even give her a fight. For acting like he wasn't any better than Fred.
"I only meant that I think you look beautiful. You are beautiful."
Amy looked at the mirror again. "No, I'm not. That is objectively not true."
"Maybe it isn't," Laurie said, evading again. "Maybe it is. I'm your husband and I love you; what do you want me to do? Lie? Is that going to make you feel better? I'll do it, if that's what you want. I'll do anything for you, Amy. I love you."
"You sound like an idiot." That was objectively true.
"You look beautiful," Laurie repeated. "Sorry if that's not what you want to hear right now."
"It's not." Meg had been through this. Amy would have wondered how Meg had borne it, except that Meg was Meg, and stupidly in love with her husband, and not expected to make appearances and be an ornament to society.
"I'm sorry." Laurie put his arms around her, pressing another kiss to the back of her neck, his hands on her stomach. They still looked soft, and weak, and like they hadn't done a day of honest work in their life. "You can yell at me if you want. I'm sure I deserve it. After all, this whole situation is my fault."
"I think I had a little bit to do with it as well," Amy said dryly. Her treacherous mouth wanted to smile, because Laurie was being sweet and ridiculous, which was just another word for foolish.
"Did you? Are you sure about that?"
I married you. I'm not an idiot, Amy almost said, except that it could be argued those two statements were in direct contradiction of one another. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, and then you bandaged my hand when I was hurt, and you made it worse by making me feel better. She said, "Fairly sure, yes."
"Fairly sure," Laurie repeated. "So not completely sure."
If it hadn't been you, it would have been Fred. The thought was repellent, suddenly, which was irrational; Aunt March would have scoffed and told her not to be silly.
"I said 'yes'," she said.
"Do you wish you hadn't now?" Laurie asked. "Do you regret it?"
Amy scoffed. "No, I don't regret marrying you. I'm simply saying that being pregnant makes me feel horrid and horrible and ugly, so don't try and turn this into being about you, because it's not."
"You're not any of those things, Ames. I don't know what else I can say to make you believe it."
"Nothing, probably," Amy said.
"Well, that's disappointing. Now I feel kind of useless."
"You are," Amy said, which was horrid and horrible of her, she thought, and she'd warned him, she'd told him, so she shouldn't feel even a little bit bad about it, except that she did. A little. "You are very useless, and I'm horrid and horrible and ugly, and maybe we should stop talking about this now before we get any worse, because it's not going to get any better."
Laurie rested his hands on her stomach. His soft, weak, warm hands. "You're pregnant, Amy. I know that. I can take it. I can handle it."
"You can 'handle' it?" Amy chuckled. "You're not the one looking like this, Laurie. You're not the one who's pregnant. You don't have to 'handle' anything. You just have to wait for it to be over."
Laurie's left hand started drawing soothing circles that weren't very soothing, actually. "I know. I will."
"Why can't it be over already? Why do I have to put up with months of this? Months of looking like this, feeling like this? I hate it." In the books, nobody ever hated it. In the books, if anyone was pregnant, they felt blessed. They were cherished, and protected, and made comfortable, and she knew, she knew that Laurie cherished her and would protect her and make her comfortable if she told him to, if she wanted him to, but none of that changed anything.
"Tell me what to do to make it better and I will," Laurie said.
Amy sighed. "You can't. That's my point. You can't do anything. It's me. I have to stop - but I can't. I can't just tell myself 'stop feeling like this' and do it."
"Because that's not how feelings work." Laurie grinned, and Amy knew he remembered their conversation in the atelier, when she'd told him she thought people should, could have some control over whom they loved, and he'd told her the poets would disagree, and she'd replied she was a woman, not a poet, which hadn't actually meant he'd been wrong, or that she'd had any actual control over whom she loved. "You can't just stop."
"I could stop looking at myself in the mirror," Amy said. "That might be a start."
Laurie hmm'ed. "I like looking at you. You're - "
"Don't say 'beautiful' again."
"Splendid." Laurie kissed the back of her neck. "Magnificent." Again. "Gorgeous." And again. "Divine."
"Please stop." Amy turned away from the mirror, stepping away from Laurie's touch, Laurie's warmth. "What's the time? We have to be somewhere this morning, don't we? The Russells?"
"We can send a note."
"Yes, we could do that. Only we're not, because I'm pregnant, not ill."
Laurie stepped closer again, kissing her on the lips this time. He'd gotten very good at navigating his way around the bump, at making it so that she almost felt like it wasn't there at all. "I love you, Amy."
"And I love you, but we're still going, so go get ready. Get dressed. And get me some breakfast."
"Your wish - " Laurie started, then made a show of reconsidering. "No, I guess that's not right, is it? Your command, then. Your command is my command." He bowed, as elaborate as if he were on a stage. "My lady."
Amy felt the smile she'd been holding back break through at last. "Go away. Now."