This movie left me in absolute pieces, and I'm not sorry for making them happy.
Abby Sorenson / Luke Manning, semi-fix-it fic, post-canon, canon-compliant.
~0~
Knowing You
She hits send on the email quickly, like it burns.
It's been three years and seventeen days since her brother's funeral. There was no planning on the timing, it just worked out that way; fate, or the cosmos' sick twisted joke making this time of year somehow significant. The email isn't going to him, of course – she never allowed herself to have such a luxury, not even after two days. Not even for a moment. The email has been sent to Greg in the hope he's still a priest, still in Ontario, still in touch with his old friend.
Luke promised he would stay in touch. He's a man of his word, she knows.
Hi Greg,
My name is Abby. We met a couple of years ago when you officiated my brother's funeral, I'm a friend of Luke's-
What kind of friend emails the priest of a small town via his parish website, anyway?
And she's assuming Kayla will have told Greg the real story after their rather explosive confrontation at the hotel. Abby assumes that, by now, everyone in Ontario knows Luke was lying about their marriage.
Well that's too bad; this is all she knows to do, all she's capable of doing. She doesn't have his email, after all. She doesn't have an address or a number, or the patience to call every publisher in New York asking for Luke Manning. A priest on the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie will have suffice, and maybe if Luke has done as she told him to do, and fallen madly in love with another woman, Greg will have the decency to spare Abby's feelings and just say he doesn't have Luke's number after all.
Maybe what she felt that weekend was misplaced from her grief and her loneliness, but she owes it to herself to find out.
- you let us sit and talk – just talk – in your church all night and I think that's where I fell in love with another man who was not my husband or God.
She deleted that line, wrote another like it, something about the church, without revealing what it meant to them; agonised over how much to tell him about why she's reaching out now, three years later. She's not sure it's appropriate to detail the way her own marriage became wretched, quiet, and eventually died without either her or Peter trying to stop it. They watched it fade, the arguments turning to silence, the anger turning to resignation, and neither of them reached out to catch it before it fell, and none of that was Luke's fault either. It just happened, with time and change and two people drifting apart despite her belief at the time that it was just a hard year and they would get over it eventually.
They never got over it, really. May never really be over it, if she's honest. Her husband's eyes had stopped shining for her.
She left that out of the email, because Greg doesn't need to know that, in the end, Pete made the call – told her the sad days were outweighing the happy ones, the kids were nearly grown and could cope with it now, that they didn't make each other any less lonely for living in the same house and sleeping in the same bed.
She feels so desperately lonely now, and more restless than she's ever felt before in her life.
Maybe that's why this stupid idea came into her head to try and find him after all, even though she promised him and herself that she wouldn't.
When the reply comes back barely a day later, Luke's number, office address, home address, email address, buried in the middle of great to hear from yous and enthusiastic platitudes, Abby puts her hand over her mouth and laughs.
~0~
There is a time difference between London and New York that feels like the distance between Earth and the moon – inaccessible, unreachable, walked by a few extraordinary people but no others and certainly not a middle aged mother, with two near-grown children, living in a flat in south London. It's sometime in the dead of night in New York, which is a coward's way of explaining why she clicks send and then slams her laptop lid down like her heart's not pounding out of her chest.
It's eight in the morning and she has the entire rest of the day to think about what the fuck she just did, so she takes her camera, leaves her mobile, and goes walking through Clapham Common looking for anything that will stop her chest from feeling like there's an anvil inside it.
Her daughter is eighteen now. Going on a gap year to Berlin, because that's what you do when you're eighteen and finished school and have your whole life ahead of you. Molly will never make the same mistakes in a big foreign city, she's too smart for that, but some days Abby looks at her daughter and sees so much of herself it scares her. Some days Abby wants to tell her never to settle and to love fiercely and there is nothing to regret about raising your children with a good man even if you fall out of love with him later. Some days she even thinks Molly will listen.
Ben would never listen. But Ben is sixteen and still furious at her and Peter for making him choose which house will get each particular game, and pair of shoes, and posters on the wall.
Abby wonders what Ben will make of Luke, and the thought has her walking further around the park instead of taking the tube back home, just to keep from throwing up.
She thought about it sometimes, as the years stayed gloomy and her feet longed to carry her away; thought about what might have happened if she had thrown caution to the wind and taken his email address; given her husband something to truly hate her for. Her children would have hated her too, almost as much as she would have hated herself, and that's why she didn't do it. She didn't want to replace the love in her house with hatred. And there was love – plenty of love – just none between her and Peter, in the end.
But truly, she wondered what would have happened, to leave everything she knew back in England and let herself believe that a vagabond life in New York City (or Brooklyn, but close enough) was her destiny all along.
She's still glad she made the choice she did.
And she's still glad she kissed him.
~0~
Abby opens the front door and just about screams from shock, taking two significant steps back from the doorway while he stands there, startled yet amused, a small carry-on suitcase in his hand.
Luke was never a homewrecker – it was the first thing she ever learned about him. He was willing to move to London and do his best not disrupt her kids – it was one of the last things she learned about him.
"You're here", she breathes, barely above a whisper.
Peter and I are getting a divorce. I've already moved into a new flat. The kids will split their time between the two of us, but really I think they'll be with me more. Ben and his dad can't go a day without sniping at each other lately and-
[delete]
-I've got a new contract with National Geographic for a feature. I'll be going around southern England for two weeks to shoot. Practically a holiday. It'll be nice to get on the road, maybe I won't be so jealous of Molly's big European adventure if-
[delete]
In the end she can barely remember what made it into the email she sent him and what remained in her head as a secret to tell him later – when they know each other well enough to whisper secrets over a shared pillow in the dark. She left in that she was separated, and added her address to the signature block, and maybe mentioned something about getting another cat.
It's barely a day and a half later and Luke Manning is standing on her front stoop and Abby Sorenson is lucky she's not the swooning type.
"Is that okay?" he asks, worried for a moment that he misinterpreted the meaning of her email – worried that maybe getting on the first available flight from New York to London would be seen as the act of a madman instead of the grand gesture he hoped it would be.
"Um, ye- I mean, yes, it's fine", she stutters, wringing her hands.
She tries to smile; it comes out more of a grimace. She hopes that doesn't send him away. His hair is a little shorter and a tiny bit greyer. He's in a jumper instead of a suit jacket, jeans instead of slacks, and loafers instead of brogues, and god almighty she forgot how stupidly gorgeous he is in real life, even factoring for her whimsical memory.
His eyes still shine for her, just like Greg said they did. Even she can see that, as they stare at each other across the threshold of her front door, neither of them able to move closer yet loath to move away. They are wide and shining and looking at her like he can't believe that she's real either.
This time his speech isn't nearly so contrived, but perhaps it's equally desperate.
"A few years ago I spent thirty-six hours getting to know you and I don't think I've stopped loving you since, so I decided not to waste any more time"
She can't believe this is happening. Of all the ridiculous ways that stupid weekend could have panned out, this was not a possibility she could have considered. She doesn't delude herself that he was pining for her – she told him to go find somebody and she desperately needs to believe that he at least tried – but she realises now just how utterly forsaken his heart has been these past three years that his reply to her email (heartfelt, honest, raw though it had been in all its unedited glory) was to get on a plane and show up on her door.
She should have known he would, given how they met. She should have expected this from a romantic.
"You told me to love someone"
He says it with a small shrug, his eyes wide and searching – pleading – and he looks somehow both lost and utterly found.
She laughs, once, nervously. "And do you?"
He smiles and steps across the threshold. "With all my heart", he says.
She does too, but there is a good chance this is a midlife crisis for the both of them, so she's not going to just take him at his word. Luke Manning seems like the kind of guy who falls hard and stays there forever. She doesn't want to give him the impression he can just waltz into her life and take it over – consume her with all his manners and goodness and self-effacing modesty and literary references. She has a life, a job. She has two kids who are still young and still need her despite their insistence otherwise. She has a heart that is bruised and hurting over a failed marriage. Luke Manning has no right to come strutting into her house like he's always been there, no matter how much she wants him to.
"Why don't I pop the kettle on?" she says, and turns around to the sound of his joyous and startled laugh.
~0~
"Abby, wait", he calls, catching her wrist before she disappears into the kitchen. He left the bag by the door – no presumptions, as always. The feel of his skin on hers gives her goosebumps. They're touching, one of only a handful of light touches they've ever shared, and she thinks if she turns around and looks at him she might cry.
She knows so much and yet so little about him – knows his mother's favourite writer and that he was arrested as a teenager, but not how he takes his coffee or whether he likes cricket. She knows she never felt more appreciated than when she was pretending to be married to him, hearing him defend all the very best parts of her to an old friend. But she doesn't know if he even wants to be married. Never came close, he told her, but that doesn't mean never wanted it, and never wanted to be in love again.
She has no idea what it is she loves about him, but she knows she does.
"I'm not here to make your life more difficult", he whispers, his head close to her ear. The only point of contact is his hand on her wrist.
His mum walked out and started a new life with a new family, with no room for her oldest son. His dad walked out and never came back. Luke knows the price of losing a parent and she knows he would never make life more complicated for her children on purpose. But they are in their fifties now. Midlife keeps marching on and her children won't need her forever, and her brother died almost alone and barely loved, which even now brings an ache to her heart. Finding Luke again feels like luck. Having him show up like this feels like a miracle.
"Then why are you here?" she whispers back. Her hand turns and catches his, twining their fingers together.
"Because you gave me a second chance", he says. "And I would be a fool to throw it away"
She can hear the smile on his face.
"I don't believe we ever got a first chance", she says back, finally turning around to look at him, daring him to argue the fact that last time they met she was not his to love. They might have broken the rules, but the fact remains, this is more of a timing thing than a chances thing; you're married and I'm a gentleman¸ and there really wasn't anything more to say to each other after that.
With their entwined hands still between them Luke steps as close to her as he can manage, and lifts his other hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.
"I know what I'm walking into Abby. I know you're still working out life after your husband, and I know your first priority will always be your kids. I know there are logistics and details that we need to… work out"
She makes a face. "Where to live, where to work, whether you can drive on the left side of the road-"
He smiles at her, glad to see she isn't running away. She's even joking with him, which is nice. He looks at her for a very long moment, like he still can't quite believe that he's standing in her flat in London touching her again.
"I'm here because I want you to know that we are going to work those things out, however long it takes. I want to be with you, and I'm willing to work for it, and if you need me to wait, then I'll wait, but I couldn't wait to tell you that"
Her left hand comes up to rest on his chest, her ring finger bare since she and Peter started filing the paperwork. It still looks strange and foreign, not seeing the small band of gold there, but when she sees it resting on Luke's chest, it also feels right. There is nothing stopping this now. There is no reason she can't say yes and see what happens next.
She meets his eye. "So are we going to… date?"
He smirks at her awkwardness, which sets her at ease, because she's not sure what they are to each other, but surely they've passed that by now. And then he laughs, and she does too, because if this is dating they had a hell of a first one.
And then he kisses her like he did the first time, like they've been doing it all the time since. She melts against him and releases his hand just long enough to wrap her arms up and around his shoulders, letting him wrap his own around her back and squeeze her closer. It occurs to her then, in that moment, that he has spent a lifetime running and searching for a place to stop and rest, and she's spent a lifetime feeling stuck and unable to move. Maybe they are two sides of the same coin, polar magnets pulled together by their differences. Maybe they will balance each other out.
She only hopes he means it when he says he will do whatever it takes. Abby desperately needs him to mean it. This is the riskiest, wildest thing she's ever done.
She's breathless when they part, and his lips are pink. The front door is still ajar, letting in a breeze.
"You're not Heathcliff", she says to him softly, with certainty, her fingers running through his hair.
"No?"
She shakes her head slowly. "No. You're Wentworth"
He laughs again and lifts her off the ground in an embrace.
~0~
"Woah. That was-"
"Yeah"
"Incredible"
"It certainly was"
"Is it always like that?"
"For me, or with me?"
"Either. Both. Fuck, I don't know, my brain is still fuzzy"
He rolls onto his back and she does the same, catching her breath. Barely a moment later she rolls back into him, snuggling into his side under his arm, loath to part from the feel of his warm and still-sweaty skin. She kisses his chest mindlessly, just to feel him, and his arm lands along the length of her back to hold her there. She pulls the sheet up under her arms, though she's still hot and doesn't quite need it yet.
Abby chuckles a little, still slightly breathless, and Luke rubs his fingers over her arm and shoulder in reply. She lets the moment settle as they caress each other's skin.
"Do we get to smoke the entire cigarette?" he asks her.
She smirks, remembering their first ever conversation. "We can smoke the whole pack if we like"
He waits a beat, and then another. "Good", he says. "That's good"
~0~
"Have there been others?"
"A couple", he replies, no enthusiasm in his voice. "I tried, I really did. I learned my lesson after Kayla"
She chuckles at him and he grins back, and at the very least Abby is glad he didn't just replace one with the other; she doesn't want to think of herself as Kayla 2.0.
"How long did they last?" she asks, licking the spoon clean of chocolate sauce.
"Not very long. They were lovely women I just… my heart wasn't in it, and we were too old and wise to pretend otherwise"
She nods at him and goes back for another bite of the instant self-saucing pudding she dug out of the freezer and heated up for them as a midnight snack. She doesn't feel particularly old and wise eating a face full of chocolate, dressed in nothing but a robe after two particularly excellent rounds of sex. She feels positively juvenile. But life is funny like that, and Luke looks especially dashing in only his jeans, leaning against the kitchen island, licking his own spoon clean.
He keeps stealing looks at her skin where it peeks out of her neckline, the robe shifting as she does to show of less or more of her cleavage. She appreciates that he's an appreciative man.
Luke clears his throat and places his spoon on the edge of the bowl, indicating the last bite is hers. She takes it.
"What happened with you and your husband?" he asks softly. He hasn't asked, until now, which was kind of him. But he must have been burning to know.
She sighs, takes her time finishing her mouthful, shrugs.
"What I was hoping wouldn't happen", she says, looking up at him. "We just… stopped loving each other. Or maybe… stopped loving each other enough. Our days felt flat, the kids got older. Finally Molly finished school and Peter decided enough was enough"
Laying it out so plainly for Luke makes it seem cold somehow, and passionless. Makes them feel especially British and reserved, like they discussed the weather and their divorce in the same tone. They weren't always like that, and part of her wants to tell Luke that – tell him that her and Peter used to make each other laugh until they cried, use to go on last minute trips away, and make out in the car after a dinner out. But it doesn't matter now, what her marriage used to be. Just like it doesn't matter that he spent years pining for Kayla.
They made their choices, and now here they are.
"I can't tell you how happy it made me", she whispers after a moment, unable to look at him.
"That you weren't the only one unhappy?"
She meets his eye, so unbelievably thankful that he seems to understand.
"Yeah. I feel so guilty for saying that – I was happy he called it. But hearing him say he couldn't go on either made me feel less shitty for having… you know"
For having fallen in love with someone else; for having imagined, even for a moment, what it might be like to leave it all and start fresh somewhere new.
"You did your best", he tells her. It might not be true, but he believes it. He saw her struggle with what she wanted in the moment and what she thought she ought to do for the rest of her life, and figures she must have tried hard to keep things going smoothly. She admitted to him that she wanted very badly to sleep with him – that she even loved him – but that she couldn't just throw away the life she had built. Luke watched her walk away, and he didn't stop her.
"Anyway", she sighs. "Doesn't matter now"
She smiles at him – she wants him to know he isn't playing second fiddle, and that she's glad he came to England – but Luke would never judge her for wanting to keep her family together. And he has the decency not to admit that he's glad her marriage is ending, which is also kind.
~0~
"You can stay here"
Luke looks up from the sink where he's rinsing his water glass. "Are you sure?"
Abby moves her body like it's one single gesture – partly her hands, a bit of her hip, almost shrugs her shoulders but not quite. She's trying not to be nervous, especially after what they just did, but it's hard with Luke, because she wants this to work so much. Yet she doesn't even know him. What is the protocol here, what should she do, what does he expect?
"My kids are both away this weekend, they won't be home until tomorrow night", she adds, falling back on easy explanations.
He looks towards the hall, at his bag by the front door, wide and earnest eyes taking stock. "I came straight from the airport here", he says, an explanation. "I don't want to presume-"
She sidles up close to him, pressing herself firmly against his body, wrapping her arms around his waist. She wants to claim him, call him hers like she did over breakfast in front of his old friends, mark her territory and reassure him all at once. It's easy to recall the few precious memories she has of him in Canada, and one of the clearest – one of the memories that used to haunt her on particularly gloomy days – is of him sitting on her brother's bed, telling her he'll do anything she wants, all she has to do is ask. And while Abby has never considered herself particularly brave, she's never shied away from a challenge either.
"I want you to stay", she says. She can't be clearer than that.
Luke nods once, all uncertainty melting from him. "Then I'll stay"
She nods once too. "Good"
And because she can, she reaches up on tip-toe and kisses him.
~0~
Abby had absolutely no preconceptions, not one, yet somehow she's still surprised Luke doesn't snore. He seems like a snorer – one of those guys whose imperfections are only known to those who are close enough to share his bed and deal with a chainsaw every night.
But no. He doesn't snore.
She runs her finger across his cheek and over his lips, and smiles when he attempts to kiss it while half asleep.
"What time is it?" he mumbles, bleary, eyes still closed.
She smiles wider. Luke Manning is not a morning person.
"I don't know. Do you have somewhere else to be?"
He grins, then hums, then rolls her way and throws an arm over her as he buries his face into the pillow, all without cracking open his eyes. Definitely not a morning person. He mumbles an mm-mm in the negative to answer her question.
She lets herself snuggle against him under his arm, face on her pillow right near his. "I was thinking brunch, maybe go for a walk while the weather is nice?"
He makes another humming noise.
"I could make us coffee while you shower?"
Another noise.
Abby holds back a snort, her shoulders shaking all the same. "Or we could just stay in bed all day, sleepy head"
Luke cracks one eye open to attempt to glare at her, but it just makes him look even more adorable and she laughs.
"You're warm and your bed is comfortable", he says. His voice is half an octave lower and gravelly, and it's unfair how attractive she finds him.
"While both of those things are true", she says, and kisses his cheek. "In about ten minutes I'm going to be starving hungry, and you don't want to meet hangry Abby"
That makes him huff with an attempted laugh and finally crack his eyes open at her. Given the brightness behind her blind, it has to be at least mid-morning, maybe even nudging towards late morning, which isn't surprising given how late they stayed up, and the fact Luke had been travelling.
"You cook?" he asks.
"I never said that", she says. "Although I'm sure you'd love to see me in an apron"
He hums. "Only an apron"
"A fantasy of yours is it? Housewife?"
He just laughs through his nose a little bit, shaking his head. No, Luke isn't a fantasy guy – no more than the fantasies he chases in the real world. He likes to make love to the woman right in front of him.
"No, I was thinking almond croissants from the little bakery on the corner", she said, as she finally starts to pull herself upright. She would just stay with him in bed all morning, but she's not kidding about hangry Abby.
"That sounds delicious"
He finally rolls onto his back and rubs the sleep from his eyes as she sits on the edge of the bed and looks back over her shoulder at him. Then his hand lands on her bare back, rubbing the backs of his knuckles along the length of her spine, and he looks up at her in the dim light peeking into the room, and his eyes are still shining. She looks back at him for a very long moment, savouring it. It's been a long time since she's been cherished like this – like it isn't routine, isn't expected to wake up together – like the first thought of the day isn't whether they remembered to put the washing in the dryer, but whether they should get out of bed at all.
It's been a long time since Abby had a proper, gentle morning after. She gets the feeling Luke hasn't had this for a long time either.
"You better not break my heart", she whispers to him.
He sits up so he's at her back and kisses her shoulder, her ear, and then her lips when she turns her head enough to give him that.
"I promise to try my very best not to", he says back. It's the most he can give her, and she'll take it.
He flops back onto the pillow and she grabs her phone from the bedside table, swivelling around to face him. She slides open the camera and takes a quick, sloppy photo, trying to capture in a brief moment the exact way he's watching her, framed as he is by her off-white sheets and the dim ambient light. The picture isn't perfect and is a bit dark, but it doesn't matter. It's still beautiful.
"That's not fair", he says with a lazy grin. "Now you have two of me and I have none of you"
She grins right back, clicking her phone on lock. "Well if you're lucky, I might let you get one of me today"
It shouldn't feel like she's making some monumental promise, and yet she blushes.
~0~
"So when do you have to head back to New York?"
"Well, I can do a bit of work over email, and I told them I had to leave for a family emergency, so I can probably milk that for at least a few more days"
She snorts at him and shakes her head.
"I suppose I will need to find a hotel though. Can you recommend one? Preferably one as close as possible to your house"
She laughs at him harder. They keep walking slowly through the park, gravel pathway crunching underfoot, her hands wrapped around his arm like she's clinging to him.
Maybe she is.
"But you're right, I'll have to go back eventually"
"Will you find another job here?" she asks.
"My firm have an office here, and my boss likes me. I think I can probably swindle my way over the ditch pretty easily, actually"
That feels convenient – she has a feeling it might be more swindling than he's admitting to, but it's lucky he works in a fairly portable industry, and for a multi-national. Anything that makes this crazy plan easier to execute is a gift horse she won't look in the mouth. It already feels too unreal, for them to be throwing more obstacles in their own way.
"And your flat? Or, no, sorry, apartment"
He smiles. "I'll sell it. It's nothing special"
"And your things?"
"Abby, what are you doing?"
She sighs, but doesn't stop walking. "Sorry. I'm not – sorry. It's my logical brain taking over, there's just-"
"There's a few things to work out. Small things-"
"Big things"
"Not that big, and nothing of any great importance"
She looks up at his face as they walk and can see that he's serious. Luke has moved before, many times, for all kinds of reasons great and small. He has changed cities, countries, jobs, for no better reason than he wanted to. This time he wants to; this time he has a reason he's been chasing with all his heart. Selling a few trinkets and boxing up some shoes is nothing compared to the leap they are taking.
She wants to keep asking questions, about where he wants to live in London and whether he can afford the rent here, but she has a feeling his only answer will be that he wants to live anywhere that's closest to her, and he'll make it happen by any means necessary.
She wants to ask him whether he wants to meet her children this time, or the next time he's in London, but maybe they aren't ready for all the questions just yet, and maybe that's okay too. Parents date for a while first, don't they? Keep it to themselves until they're ready? There's no rule saying she has to subject him to that just yet.
Everything feels so big in her mind, but it doesn't in his. In his mind it's very simple. He comes to London. He eventually meets her children. They are as happy as can be for as many days of the week as they can stand it. And one day they may even live together, see out the rest of their middle age as some de facto couple out on the town. Spend nights reminiscing about that damn weekend in Canada, or making memories at the theatre, until they're long into the twilight years and still having great unwedded sex. Or maybe they get married after all…
No, too soon to think about that. Much too soon.
"You're really going to move to London just to be with me?" she asks, knowing of course what his answer will be.
"Nah", he says with an exaggerated shrug. "It's all just part of my plan to bag Pippa Middleton. I've heard she's gorgeous"
She smacks him on the arse as he goes to dodge out of her grip, laughing like a schoolboy.
~0~
"It'll all work out, you know"
"I know"
"I'm coming back"
"In one month and two days, according to both your realtor and your boss"
"And we can Facetime and text – modern technology is a wonderful thing"
"I know that too. I guess I'd just gotten used to having you around"
"Remember that feeling when I'm officially a resident of London, hanging in your back pocket"
"You just remember how much you like my back pocket"
"How could I forget?"
"Is that why you took an inordinate amount of pictures of me? To help you remember?"
"Abby"
"Yes?"
"I love you"
"Luke"
"Yes?"
"You're going to miss your flight if you don't hurry up"
"Let them wait"
"You're such a romantic"
"You already knew that"
"Yes I did. Oh and Luke?"
"Yes?"
"I love you too"