Mitch and Amy find an unexpected connection due to absent lovers. Set around season 11.
A/N: I didn't have a beta for this story, so hopefully there won't be too many grammar errors.
After offering Casey something to drink and then reuniting her with Georgie, Amy realized she should probably eat something before exercising more horses, so she started going through her cabinets only to find that she was out of rice to go with her chicken.
She added it to the grocery list she had attached on the fridge with a magnet and figured maybe for now she could go and get some from the ranch house. It was handy to have another house so close-by whenever she ran out of something, seeing the drive to the town was not something you made just for one item. With Lisa now living in the house, the place never ran out of anything as she was so well-organized with everything - a quality Amy sometimes envied.
Putting on her boots and throwing on a coat, she was surprised to see Grandpa, Lisa, Katie and Lyndy walking out from the house just as she was about to get in.
"Hey", she greeted everyone with a smile. "Going somewhere?"
"We figured we'd go to the town and have ourselves milkshakes from Maggie's. Maybe drive around a little", Lisa explained, putting on a performance to cover up for the fact that they were going to the town to arrange some things for Amy's gift - though of course the kids would also get their milkshakes.
"Only if that's okay with you", Jack added, asking Amy's approval for Lyndy.
"Yeah, sure. Just... did you already have dinner?" Amy checked.
Jack nodded. "Of course."
"Then I guess that'll be fine", Amy replied, figuring Lyndy would love that. It was good for her to get out of the house every now and then. "Listen, before you go. Can I borrow some rice from your cabinet? I've ran out."
"Go ahead", Jack said, gesturing inside. "Just know that Lou's there", he added with a raspy whisper.
Amy froze a little, but figured she would have to face her sister sooner or later. She pursed her lips a little and took a more determined pose as she readied herself to enter the house.
"Thanks for the heads-up", she said. "Have fun at the town."
"I'm sure we will", Lisa said with a smile and helped the kids to her car. "Let's get your seat ready", she spoke to Lyndy as they went on.
Still standing on the porch, beside Amy, Jack felt the need to check something. "Will you be okay?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Grandpa", Amy assured him. He gave her a small squeeze that gave her a little more confidence, but as soon she entered the house and heard Lou's voice, talking to the phone, her stomach dropped.
She lingered in the mudroom, figuring if she should just storm inside, took the rice and go, or actually try to have a conversation with Lou. A day had already passed since Lou had said what she said, and it didn't look like she was about to make any amends.
Did she even know how badly she had hurt her? Amy wondered.
Maybe since she had not been around the house, sulking and therefore messaging her that there was a need for apology, Lou could easily just pretend what was out of sight was also out of her mind.
Eventually Amy decided to take steps toward the kitchen, thinking she was probably not going to get her apology now anyway since Lou was on the phone with someone, so she went over to the cabinet casually, acting like Lou wasn't even there.
Unfortunately, just as Amy had located the rice, Lou was finishing up with her phone call. "Okay. I'll talk to you later. Love you. Bye."
Amy turned around, leaning against the worktop, and stared toward the mudroom. Lou was sat on the couch in the living room, sideways, so she had a view to the kitchen and the doorway to mudroom so this felt like a game of "get out before an alligator notices you're there".
Everything in her body screamed for her to get out, not wanting to face a similar humiliation she had just had to deal with yesterday, but there was a part in Amy that wanted justice and needed the apology so she could move on and not feel so stuck in her apathy. If she had gathered enough courage to face Lou and tell her about the kiss with Mitch, she wasn't going to coward out from this either.
Amy wandered to the doorway that was overlooking the living room and fiddled the plastic container she had just filled with rice. "Was that Henry you were talking to...?"
Lou put down her phone and looked at her sister, having that distant, almost scornful look behind her eyes as she realized who had come into the house.
"Is this you trying to remind me that I don't need to think about you and Mitch since I have a new man now?" Lou asked.
Amy bit her tongue, trying to remind herself not to stoop on Lou's level. If they would just keep throwing this type of bitter arguments to one another, nothing would get solved and they'd be stuck in this cycle for forever until neither of them even knew what had been the initial thing that had started it all.
"No. This is me actually being interested in what you have going on in your life", Amy said, being genuine.
Lou looked at her phone, then sighing, wondering what she would even answer. A part of her was holding onto her grudge tightly, but only Georgie, Katie and Amy knew about Henry and she was dying to talk about him but didn't feel comfortable doing it with her kids as they were already dealing with adjusting to this new normal where their mom was seeing someone who wasn't their dad.
"Yeah, that was him. He was asking when I'll be back", Lou reveled. "I was hoping things would smooth over here quicker, and if these were the circumstances I had hoped for, I would probably be on my way back already, seeing Grandpa's doing alright."
Amy nodded, wondering. "Does this have anything to do with me...? Is that why you're not heading back?"
"No", Lou said, shaking her head. "It's about Georgie. I guess I just want to have a little more time with her before I head back with Katie. And I need to take care of the business too. Lisa has just offered to buy the Dude Ranch, and to be honest, I think she'd be perfect for taking care of it, but... I just have hard time letting go. It was my baby, too."
"Georgie will be fine. And Lisa and the Dude Ranch will be as well", Amy said.
Lou sighed, adjusting her arm on the top of the couch and leaning her forehead against it. "I know... I'm not really worried about them, I mean they'll both be fine; Georgie's grown up, and Dude Ranch is well-established and selling it to Lisa will actually make it easier for me to fully focus on New York and the Maggie's franchise, but... I guess I was just hoping Georgie would have been part of my new life in New York."
"She can visit you", Amy reminded. "Soon it'll be summer, and she'll have more time."
Lou nodded. "I guess..."
Amy looked at her sister, feeling like Lou needed a little bit more opening up before she could say what she actually wanted to say. She needed some kind of topic that was more neutral and would put them both on an equal level. "Did you know that dad's dad might still be alive?"
"What...?" Lou asked, waking up from her thoughts concerning Georgie, wondering where this was all coming from all of a sudden.
Amy nodded, slowly walking closer. "Casey dropped by, she brought Remi back, in fact she's outside showing Georgie what Remi has learned over the winter, and we got into talking about something she had found. While going through dad's stuff he had brought with him from Big River, Casey had come across postcards from our grandfather, the one we've never met."
Lou shook her head. "What are you talking about? We've met him."
"We have...?" This was news to Amy.
"Yeah", Lou replied. "Though, I guess you were so small then so maybe you don't remember", she realized.
Amy sat down on Grandpa's chair to hear what Lou had to say. "I don't."
"Yeah. We visited his ranch couple of times", Lou confirmed. "He had few animals there, so of course we thought it was a fun place to go to. I remember you, especially, loved chasing the chickens, and I was freaking out because I thought you were going to hurt yourself because they got so angry at you", she shared and smiled.
"Wait... that was his place?" Amy asked, recalling something about her chasing chickens somewhere sometime. Lou nodded. "Huh... I guess I never really made the connection."
"We only went there few times before things got bad with dad", Lou said. "And after that... well, I never heard of him because dad was out of our lives. If he ever tried to contact us, I would guess Grandpa wouldn't have allowed it, maybe for mom's sake. She was so broken about everything that had to do with dad. Even working with Pegasus made Grandpa worried she would only get more depressed, but it was probably the only thing that actually helped her. And since I was so little then, I don't even really remember where his ranch was. And when dad got back into our lives, he never talked about him so I guess we all thought he had passed."
Amy nodded, thoughtfully, trying to find any memories from around that time from the back of her mind, but maybe since Tim's dad had not become a permanent fixture in her life, she had completely forgot about him altogether and made out the rest, just like everyone else.
After all, this family wasn't really into talking - until maybe recently now that she was trying to change that.
"So he's alive...?" Lou got back to the current news.
"Yeah. He's in a nursing home", Amy repeated what Casey had told her.
Lou was surprised. "But he'd probably be around Grandpa's age."
"Grandpa's pretty healthy for his age", Amy replied. "And I guess there's more to the story than we know. Casey said something about him having problems with his memory. That he doesn't remember dad."
"Why hasn't dad told about him?" Lou couldn't understand.
"That's what I'm wondering. I'm thinking of talking to him about it, find out what's going on."
"We should", Lou said, giving Amy some hope about them being back to being okay with one another. Which maybe gave her a perfect opportunity to bring something up.
"For what it's worth... I'm glad you haven't left yet, because... I want to talk about something. - It really hurt me what you said..." Amy spoke. "I'm proud of you for achieving the things you have, but... my success doesn't look the same. I couldn't imagine myself doing the things you do and being happy. My happiness looks different from yours."
Lou looked at Amy, still having the same kind of defensive energy she had had before, but now it was more softer in mannerisms. "I've been where you've been. Divorced, miserable, looking for a way out of that ditch. And in comes this guy, and you think he's some kind of knight that will save you from your misery. But it's not how it works. Don't get lulled into that. You need to save yourself."
"That's what I'm doing", Amy said, "and it has nothing to do with Mitch."
"But you like him, don't you?" Lou checked. "I mean, you... kissed him", she said through clenched teeth, not sure why she was doing it to herself by even bringing that back up, but maybe she was trying to prove a point.
Amy shrugged. "I don't know how I feel about him, to be honest..." She liked him, but at the moment every positive thing she felt for him was forbidden because of all the pressure from outside, so she was trying to kill her feelings as hard as she could.
"See? That's the thing", Lou's suspicions were confirmed. "You love what he could represent in your life. The stability, the home, the comfort. But the thing is you're not ready to get stuck in that. I don't think, at least. I mean, if I had stayed with him, I wouldn't have what I have in New York. I wouldn't have found something better, something more suitable for me. I'm just looking after you, Amy. You don't want to get stuck. There might be something else for you out there, but you're not seeing it because you have your Heartland blinders on. Have had for years now. He might seem like a nice guy right now and it's so very convenient that he just happens to be around, so really you don't even have to make that much effort, but maybe if you would see what else is out there, you might see what he represents; settling for something less."
Amy looked down. She felt stuck in some ways, but at the same time whenever she was around Mitch, she felt free from that. But everything Lou was saying didn't fit into that narrative. What was she supposed to believe?
"Whatever happened to you going to university? You had that full scholarship and everything. The world was wide open for you", Lou reminded. "Maybe it's time to start thinking about that, I mean you said you weren't ruling it out at that time and that maybe you'd give yourself a gap year to think about it all, but you never got back to that. It's now been... what, almost eight years? You're still young. And Lyndy's at that stage that you can put her down for a while to play so you can do some remote studying. It's become easier than ever."
"I don't know about that. I'm fine just working as I am", Amy said. "I feel like so much time has passed that I wouldn't even know how to study anymore."
"Working as you are...?" Lou echoed. "Amy, you gotta face the facts; the business isn't exactly booming."
"Yeah, because I was out of the game for a while. But I'm back now", Amy tried to argue. "I'm going to promote myself better and get more clients. It'll be better. You'll see." She knew she wasn't exactly an expert in that, but Lou had given her some tips and revealed some tricks over the years and if she would just follow them, things would pick up soon.
"Or maybe this is a sign", Lou suggested. "Just think about it. Education is power. It'll get you to places."
Amy sighed. Lou thought she was offering her good advice, catered to her needs, but she didn't get it. "Do you think mom ever regretted not studying more?" she was trying to prove a point, but Lou got it twisted.
"Maybe she did. I mean, as a single mother of two, I could see her having some regrets because life didn't exactly go her way. But we shouldn't dwell on those regrets someone else had before us or go along the same beaten paths. We should make our own. I have - and I hope you will too", Lou replied. "Besides, the world is different now. Mom could have gotten away with not being that educated back then, but these days... people expect more."
"Okay, maybe. But my path is not going to look the same as yours", Amy reminded. "So don't expect it to."
She got up and started making her way out as she saw the disappointment on Lou's face.
"Amy..." Lou called out before she got to the mudroom. "I'm sorry for how I said it... but I'm not sorry I want better for you. Just don't get too charmed by Mitch. He might not be what you need right now. Or ever. Look for something else, something beyond him. For your sake."
It wasn't exactly the apology Amy had been hoping for, but it was, well, some kind of progress. Amy had to remind herself that when it came to Lou, that was something. Maybe from now on she wouldn't have to avoid her sister as much as she had now, and she could go on with her life - even a little bit.
