AUTHOR'S NOTES | Hi! I'm Rachel, and I run nocontextheartland on Instagram and oocheartland on Twitter. I have been writing fic for 13+ years (but we won't talk about the really old stuff, because it was… so bad…) and have watched Heartland since 2007, but somehow I've never written a single fic for this particular fandom. So here I am with my very first one, largely plotted by my subconscious in a very thorough dream I had, and painstakingly put on paper over the following month or so.

This is my take on how Lou and Mitch could still get married in season 15, going off the idea that the fancy event at the dude ranch is a Loumitch wedding, instead of what will probably end up being Tim and Jessica. I've taken some liberties with which dress Lou is wearing, because my dream-plotting told me that it was a different dress than Michelle is actually wearing in those BTS pictures, and I got attached.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

The dude ranch is small, secluded, settled away from the rest of the ranch. There is one way in and one way out, stretching through the middle of it but all leading back to the same place. And when a familiar truck comes into view, Samantha Louise Fleming is stuck in plain sight on the porch of the biggest cabin with nowhere to hide, and definitely not enough time to consider whether or not she wants to hide. She would recognize that truck anywhere, has spent enough time seeking it out in every place she looks that it would be impossible not to. If she weren't looking, perhaps she would recognize it simply from the sound of the tires crunching over gravel. Maybe that's a little pathetic. Maybe she just misses him enough that she's started to actually romanticize the sound of tires on a driveway.

So by the time the truck rolls to a stop behind her own car, Lou hasn't moved an inch. Is just standing there with a bucket in one hand and a rag in the other, watching his silhouette behind the setting sun glaring on the windshield. She waits like that while he climbs out of the truck, bright blue eyes and cowboy hat and everything, like no time has passed at all. He stands at the foot of the steps and looks up at her, and she looks down at him, and they remain like that for some indistinguishable amount of time that could be either a handful of seconds or several long, drawn-out minutes.

Finally, he breaks the silence. "Hi."

"What are you doing here, Mitch?" she asks. Her voice comes out a little too loud, a little too sharp. She sets down the bucket and the rag, then wishes she didn't. She doesn't know what to do with her hands when they're empty, settles for twisting them together in front of her like a goddamn display of how nervous she is.

Mitch tilts his head on the slightest angle and examines her closely, seeming to struggle with what words he wants to use. In the end, what comes out is a half-asked and half-implied question: "Are you and Peter…?"

"No," she answers immediately.

She doesn't miss the relief that flickers in his eyes, but then he blinks and it's hidden away. "I'm sorry," he says.

He's not, and that's okay.

He doesn't ask for details, and she is grateful. She's not sure that she can explain to his face how she and Peter tried, however briefly, to rekindle their relationship before calling it all off. How in the end, they decided it wasn't worth risking all of the progress they've made since they stopped being married. How embarrassing it is that she always jumps ten steps ahead of herself like that.

Warily, she watches him. The way his face moves, the way his shoulders lift and lower as he breathes. "What are you doing here?" she repeats, not quite as loudly this time.

She isn't sure what she expects him to say. Everything is always a little up in the air with him, a little unpredictable, a little unsteady. Is that the thing that made them work, or the thing that didn't? What she doesn't expect is what happens: He puts his hands in his pockets and looks her right in the eye and says, "I'm not over you, and I was kind of hoping maybe you weren't over me, either."

Lou is swept back to a sunlit field where she said that to him, once, in exactly those words, and her heart pounds. She blinks rapidly and the field is gone, replaced by him at the bottom of the stairs, his truck behind him and the lake shimmering in all the colours of the sunset behind that. The corner of his mouth quirks upward in the exact crooked smile of his that she's always liked.

I'm not. I'm not over you. I'm so not over you that sometimes it feels like I can't breathe.

"Oh," she manages.

Mitch's smile widens, just slightly, like he knows the words she can't say out loud. He takes a deep breath and spreads his hands before him, palms up. "So here's the thing," he begins, "I miss you. So much I don't even know what to do with myself."

She sighs. "Mitch…"

"Lou," he says back. He always says her name like maybe it matters more than all the other names. And then, softly, "I love you."

Her heart twists, stings. "I love you, too, but," and she catches all the little changes in his face – hopeful to apprehensive to sad, the shift in his eyebrows and the set of his mouth. She closes her eyes for a moment and prays that will make it easier. Maybe it works, because her voice comes out a little stronger now. "But we've done this before. You want a family, and I don't want to have more kids, and you – you have to… You should find someone, someone who can give you that."

He lifts his foot onto the first stair. "These last few months without you," he starts, moving slowly up another step, and then another, until he's on the porch in front of her, close enough to reach out and touch. "I've had a lot of time to think. You know, go over it all in my head, and… I've figured out one thing for sure: I don't want to have kids with somebody else."

He reaches out and his fingertips graze the back of her hand, and maybe she should pull back but she can't, won't, doesn't want to. She is always like this around him, weak, melting when he gets too close.

But still, she whispers, "You're not listening." Because she remembers the last conversation they had, in the dark midway between the house and the pond; remembers the look on his face when she said it out loud, I don't think I'm the person you're looking for; remembers how he held his breath when she rose up onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek.

"I'm listening," he counters. She starts to shake her head. He doesn't want to have kids with somebody else and she doesn't want to have more kids, period – so it's still a stalemate, isn't it? It's still the thing that they can't find common ground on, and there is no having both. Tucking her hair carefully back behind her ear, Mitch lets his hand linger there. "It's not a dealbreaker. I just… needed some time to figure that out."

Lou's fingers curl at the zippered edges of his coat. "But what about your void?"

His hands find her hips. "Turns out I was wrong," he says.

Too much hope flickers in her chest.

"I thought I had this void, this hole in me, this – emptiness, and I thought about losing Zack, and I thought about you and your girls, and I just thought…" He trails off. He has exuded some level of confidence until now, in that perfectly-Mitch way that she has always been drawn in by, but now he is nervous. The last time he was this nervous, it was in her kitchen with her heart sinking heavy towards her feet. "I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought that was what I needed. But… Lou, I've been trying to wrap my head around this. Not having you. And it – it sucks. It's awful and lonely and – and grey. I don't want it." He inhales sharply and continues, more determined now, "I told you, before, that there was a void, but it turns out… It turns out that life without you, and Katie, and Georgie, and this whole family – hell, even Peter – it's worse. It's a bigger void."

When Lou blinks, it's to find that the image of him seems to swim before her eyes. She tugs him closer by his coat and he bows his head so his forehead touches hers. She closes her eyes against the tears threatening to fall and stays there, quiet, just listening to him breathe. It sounds shaky, if she focuses enough on it.

"Mitch," she says softly. The entire world seems to have narrowed down to only them, standing pressed together on the porch, nothing else. She tries to gather her thoughts and all she gets is his words echoed in her head. I want whatever you want; most of all, I just want you, and I feel like there is a void inside of me and I have to fill it, and I don't want to have kids with somebody else, and It turns out that life without you, it's worse. It's a bigger void. "I… I need to know you won't change your mind," she whispers. "Because I can't do it, Mitch, I can't handle that again. I've already lost you enough times."

A quiet pause, significant enough that Lou catches herself wondering if he is going to pull away. Maybe he can't promise that. Maybe she has let him get too close to her again, and she is only going to get hurt.

Still, she can't let go of his coat; she doesn't want to let him pull back. She opens her eyes and blinks once, twice, three times, trying to take in everything about his face in case this is the real end. He's so close that the details are blurry, his eyes closed and his brows furrowed. She's still holding onto him and he's still holding onto her, but for how long?

"I'm tired of changing my mind," he murmurs. Relief seeps all the way down to her bones. His lips curve in a small smile. "I'm not going anywhere."

Lou kisses him, hard.

His response is immediate, his grip tightening at her hips as she slides her hands up to his shoulders to pull him in, kissing her back firmly as though she is oxygen and he has been holding his breath for too long. She can't tell whether it is him or her that begins to guide them towards the door into the cabin, only that her feet knock over the bucket that she set down as they move. She can't bring herself to care, not beyond ensuring that they keep moving.

The interior of the cabin is dim, curtains drawn and the sun sinking in the sky outside. Mitch presses her back into the door and frames her face in his palms, can't get the angle right to kiss her again until she has her hands in his hair and his hat has fallen to the floor. "I missed you," he keeps saying, over and over in all the little in-between moments. "I missed you," before his hands drag down her sides and slip underneath her shirt. "I missed you," before his lips find that one spot just underneath her jawline.

"I missed you," she whispers back, arching to get closer to him. She pushes him toward the bed and he spins so that she hits the mattress first.

Afterward, they lie on their sides, facing each other with their knees touching, and Mitch traces patterns on her bare shoulder. She watches his gaze follow the path of his fingers and marvels at how the last few months have felt cold and colourless, until his truck pulled up in front of her tonight. How somehow touching him has turned her entire world back onto its proper axis.

"You're beautiful," he tells her, very quietly.

She can't help it, the slight flush of pink at her cheeks. She props herself up on one elbow and leans over him to kiss him again, this time soft and slow. When she pulls back, the ends of her hair trail over his skin. "I think I'd let you break my heart a thousand times," she says.

Mitch shakes his head. "No more breaking your heart," he replies.

Flattening her palm against his cheek, Lou traces the pad of her thumb at the corner of his mouth. She smiles at him in the dark. "Yeah?"

He presses his hand over hers to hold it there. "Yeah."

She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder, wearing his T-shirt that she retrieves from the floor when she manages to convince herself to stray away from him for only a moment, his fingers in her hair until she drifts off. She sleeps better like this than she has in months, with the sound of his breathing and the reassuring weight of him on the mattress next to her.

"Lou," he whispers in the morning, and she hums softly in response. "Can we still get married?"

She opens her eyes. Sunlight streams through a gap in the curtains and catches his eyelashes. They have shifted in sleep, more space between them, and he has turned on his side to look at her. "What?"

"This Saturday. Can we still get married?"

Saturday. It's the original date that they were planning the wedding for, with the tent for the reception outside and the invitations to a long list of addresses that she had to send never-minds to. Lou blinks, suddenly wide awake. Sitting up abruptly, she pushes the blankets back and sets her feet on the floor, trying to wrap her head around this request as she stands and spins back to face him.

"Mitch, that's in three days," she points out.

He makes a show of counting out the days on his fingers one by one – Thursday, Friday, Saturday – and nods solemnly. "You're right, that's in three days," he agrees.

She has to fight back a smile.

Mitch stands, too, rounds the end of the bed toward her, and she steps back towards the fireplace, holding her hands out in front of her to keep him at a distance. She can't think straight when he's too close to her, sometimes. "Mitch," she reminds him, "we cancelled the tent – and the caterer – and I sent cancellations to everyone on the guest list – and, and –"

"I don't care about any of that," he says simply. Stepping forward again, he reaches for her hands and catches them where she's halfheartedly been trying to fend him off, tugging her in closer to him and looping his arms around her waist. Automatically, she lifts her own arms to link her hands at the back of his neck. "Lou, we don't need a tent or a caterer or a hundred guests. I just want to spend the rest of my life with you." Her heart hammers erratically in her chest at that, the lack of hesitation, the clear and confident declaration of it all. He meets her eyes, blue on green, and holds her gaze purposefully. "So if you want that, too, then… what are we waiting for?"

All of her ability to put her feelings into coherent sentences seems to have evaporated right out of her. "I – you – I want… I don't even have a dress," she says weakly. "I returned it, and it's way too short notice to –"

He cuts her off abruptly by dipping his head to kiss her, kisses her thoroughly until she's at least half-forgotten her train of thought. When he pulls away, all Lou can manage is a sort of embarrassingly shaky breath as she curls her fingers in his hair to ground herself. "You don't need a fancy dress. We can get married in jeans," he suggests. His crooked little grin is back, the dimples she loves appearing in his cheeks.

She shoves him playfully. "I am not marrying you in jeans," she replies, frowning.

His smile grows; the dimples deepen. "But you are open to the idea of marrying me?" he checks.

Her teeth dig into her lower lip as she examines him thoughtfully. We don't need a tent or a caterer or a hundred guests. I just want to spend the rest of my life with you, his voice echoes in her head. She has never considered that, not planning out every last detail. It is decidedly not very Lou to agree to an unplanned wedding in three days.

But her heart feels so full that she can barely breathe, only it's in a good way. "Okay."

He kisses her again, and she presses forward until he steps back, and again, until he bumps into the side of the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress reflexively. He pulls her over him and she follows, one knee on either side of his hips, and her lips travel smoothly down his neck, and all she can think is, I just want to spend the rest of my life with you.

"Shit," she says later, "I'm going to have to tell people."

"Probably a good idea."

They collect their clothes and make the bed, and Lou does her best to comb through her hair with her fingers. She will have to talk to the girls first, she decides, and ensure that they are on board before saying anything to anybody else. In the doorway, she turns back. "Mitch," she says, and waits until he looks up. His gaze is soft and open, and it makes her feel a little like she's melting. "You're not wearing jeans, either."

He mock salutes. "Yes, ma'am."

She can't stop smiling as she drives back to the house. She feels rather as if she's flying, like if she puts the windows down and sticks her arm out like she used to when she was a child, the car will simply take off into the sky. Mitch is back, and he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, and she wants to spend the rest of her life with him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE | Reviews and follows make me happy, so if you have a moment to do that, I would appreciate it so much! See you next chapter, when Lou has 19347 important conversations with various characters. In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram (nocontextheartland) or Twitter (oocheartland or deboceans). Thank you for reading!