Chapter Text
Zoe woke up with a headache after a dream that had turned into a nightmare she didn’t want to remember. It was all stress-induced, she was sure of it, but there was little she could do to fix anything right now.
To think that when Wade hadn’t moved to Atlanta, she thought everything was going to be so easy, so perfect. Fat chance. Maybe it was just fate making sure she got her share of having to work hard at their relationship, that’s what Zoe figured at the time. After all, as much as Wade hurt her once upon time, she was well aware that she had brought him his share of pain too. He had done a lot of the running early on and then it was her turn to put in the effort, and Zoe absolutely did, to no avail it seemed.
It felt as if she tried everything, from making breakfast for Wade, to serenading him with a Johnny Cash number. Okay, so her grits were gross and Meatball had been staying over at the gatehouse the night she tried singing her way back into Wade’s heart, but at least she was trying and that ought to count for something.
Zoe really thought she was onto something the night she went over to Wade’s place to seduce him. The romantic part of their relationship had started with sex before, it could again, or so she had thought. Unfortunately, Wade did not feel the same. He was willing to sleep with her, and that part was as good as ever, even he admitted as much, but after the deed was done, he wanted nothing more.
The worst part was, Zoe couldn’t really blame him. He had only repeated words back to her that she had used in the beginning. She had made what they had all about sex for way too long, she could hardly say Wade was wrong to use the same tactics later. Of course, the difference this time was that she loved him, so very, very much.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel it too. When she finally got him to talk to her about it, Wade admitted he loved her still and had never stopped, but he couldn’t trust her. That had hurt more than a little. In fact, Zoe felt as if her heart was breaking, but there was just nothing she could do to make it better. She couldn’t force Wade to trust her and he wouldn’t give her the chance to prove herself.
Eight weeks later and they had barely talked at all. When they did, it was just so horribly awkward, and then, last night, Earl and Mae had tried to help. Zoe had called it a reverse-Parent Trap, she didn’t know how else to put it. The only downside was that it hadn’t actually worked out as well for them as Lindsay Lohan’s parents in the cute family movie. Zoe so wanted another chance with Wade but he said no, again and again.
Just thinking about it made the tears well in her eyes for the hundredth time and Zoe hated that she was being so weak. She wanted to be stronger, she wanted to keep on fighting, but it seemed so pointless. Wade just couldn’t get past his fear of getting hurt again. All Zoe was doing by forcing the issue was hurting herself.
Then there was one other thing to consider, the potential result of the one night of passion Zoe and Wade had shared eight weeks before. It was the source of the nightmare she just woke up from and she hoped when she got to the practice this morning the results would have arrived, telling her she was free and clear. The very last thing this hopeless situation needed was a baby in the mix!
“Did you hear me? Wade?” Wanda called again, much louder, causing him to suddenly startle out of his thoughtful daze. “What is the matter with you today?”
“Nothin’.” Wade shook his head. “I was just... I’m fine,” he told her, forcing a smile. “What can I get for the momma-to-be, huh?”
“Just a ginger ale, thank you,” Wanda told her, hands resting on her rounded belly.
He wondered how she was balancing on a bar stool so well in her condition but it almost seemed rude to ask, so he didn’t. Wade just poured Wanda her drink and placed it in front of her.
“On the house,” he told her the moment she reached for her cash. “Since I’m guessin’ it’s medicinal anyway?”
“Pregnancy is just a laugh a minute with all its symptoms and side effects.” Wanda rolled her eyes. “Still, I’m doing okay, nothing to worry on, except for you, of course,” she said, staring at him and frowning then. “Are you working too hard?” she checked. “Because you hardly look like you slept at all last night.”
“That’ll be because I hardly did,” Wade sighed, running a hand over his face. “But it’s not work, it’s... other stuff,” he said vaguely.
“Like Zoe Hart.” Wanda smiled, sipping at her drink. “Oh, come on now, Wade. It’s not like everybody doesn’t know you two are still dancin’ around each other. How long are you gonna keep pretendin’ you don’t want her back?”
“I’m not pretending!” he told her, eyes wide with surprise at her words. “I don’t want her back. I don’t!” he insisted when Wanda made a face.
“What you don’t want is the heartache that taking a chance on her might bring,” she said knowingly. “But Wade, love is as much about risking everything as it is living happily ever after. You don’t think it’s been scary for me, marrying Tom, having this baby? There are a hundred things that could go wrong but if I sat and thought about them all, I wouldn’t be here like this, happily married, soon to be a mom,” she said, grinning wide.
“It’s different for you and Tom.” Wade sighed and shook his head. “You got lucky, everything has just worked for you two. Me and Zoe, we tried - God knows, we tried - more’n once. It just always ends bad.”
“Well, maybe those were your practice runs. You know like when you try to cook a new recipe, it doesn’t always turn out right on the first try, but you persevere and one day you turn around and you made a perfect stew or pie or whatever it is you were trying for,” Wanda explained easily. “These things just take work, Wade. Practice and time and planning, but most of all work.”
Wade nodded that he understood what she was saying but then had to move away down the bar to serve other patrons. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still thinking about all that Wanda had said, alongside some home truths he already had from Earl and Lemon in the last twenty-four hours. He sure did have a lot to consider where Zoe Hart was concerned, but then, he always had.
When Zoe walked back into the practice after lunch, Annabeth looked so startled she almost tossed her cell phone right on the floor behind the reception desk.
“You doing okay, AB?” she checked, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Yes, I am doing very okay.” Annabeth giggled. “Um, I was just... texting, you know, with my parents, who I spent this past weekend with.”
“Okay.” Zoe nodded, deciding she wasn’t in a place to be getting into somebody else’s strange behaviour right now. “Um, did those test results come through?”
“Yes, right here,” AB agreed, pushing the folder towards Zoe. “Those Lemon’s tests?”
“That’s right.” Zoe nodded firmly. “All about Lemon, every test, all for Lemon,” she insisted, opening the folder fast as she hurried towards her office.
A huge sigh of relief escaped her as she got inside, her back hitting the door. All Lemon’s test results were fine, she most likely just had a virus, but Zoe’s great relief came from the one test result in the list that had nothing to do with Miss Breeland.
The pregnancy test was Zoe’s own, slipped in with the others so the nosey Bluebellians would never know that she suspected she might be with child. Apparently, she was wrong anyway. All her symptoms were just stress-induced, they had to be because the test was negative. Zoe Hart was definitely not pregnant.
Wade wasn’t sure why he was quite so nervous as he stepped up onto the porch of the carriage house. It was only twenty-four hours ago that Zoe had said this was just exactly what she wanted, for him to come on up to her door and ask her to dinner, letting her know that he wanted to give their relationship one more try. Still, there was a part of him that wondered if he might be too late, if now when he finally asked her, Zoe would say no, because he just waited that little bit too long.
“Be a man, Kinsella,” he told himself in a low voice before raising his hand to knock at last.
Zoe came to the door within a minute, looking as beautiful as she ever had, and Wade’s heart skipped a beat when she smiled.
“Wade, what are you doing here?”
Taking a deep breath, he let his mind go back over all the things he knew he needed to say before she got a chance to cut in, then he went for it.
“Okay, so, last night you said that all you wanted was for me to come on over here and ask you to dinner, tell you that I want to give us another shot. Now, at the time, I just couldn’t imagine that happenin’. I mean, all that stuff I said to you a couple of months back, about not bein’ able to trust you... Zoe, I didn’t really mean that. I was just... well, scared and pushing you away, you know? And yeah, maybe I’m not 100% sure that you wouldn’t hurt me if we restarted things, but I do know that I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I love you, Zoe Hart, and I come to realise that it’s worth the risk. So, I’m here and... and I’m asking you to dinner.”
When he was done and actually hoping for a response, Wade stared at Zoe and realised neither a yes or a no seemed to be forthcoming.
“After all that, please tell me this isn’t gonna end with you slammin’ a door in my face?” he said cautiously.
Zoe laughed even as tears spilled from her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said then, swiping at her cheeks. “Wade, I know I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. You and me, it’s been kind of a rollercoaster and assuming that you would want to jump back on just because I was ready, that wasn’t fair. I mean, you know I love you, so, so much, and if you really want to take me to dinner tonight, I would absolutely love to go,” she told him then, smiling widely.
“Well, alright then.” Wade grinned back at her. “Best you get yourself dressed, doc, ‘cause we got a reservation in, like, ten minutes.”
“What? You made a reservation?” she checked, wide-eyed with surprise.
“Wanda did.” Wade shrugged. “She seemed pretty sure you’d say yes, even if I was startin’ to wonder.”
“I’ll change fast,” Zoe promised, leaning in to plant a kiss on his cheek before she ran back inside to get ready.
“Wow, AB, you look a little green,” said Lemon with a frown.
“Ugh, I feel green,” she admitted, putting a hand to her head. “Please, Lemon, keep your grandma away from me. I know this is her party and that ought to mean she has things the way she wants, but if you let her pour any more drinks into me, I am going to start spilling things that you do not want spilled.”
“Oh, fudge sticks up a fudge tree. You haven’t told her about Henry?” Lemon hissed.
“Not a word,” AB promised, trying to cross her heart but missing her target and kind of crossing her shoulder instead. “Nothing about Henry, nothing about... that other thing I’m not supposed to say either. I haven’t even mentioned my trip last weekend.”
Lemon frowned at that. “Why would Grandma Bettie even care about your weekend away to visit with your parents?”
AB’s eyes went comically wide and then she laughed too loudly.
“Can’t imagine why she would,” she said through fits of giggles, until her eyes landed on Brick across the room and she sobered fast. “Oh, I gotta get outta here,” she said definitely, watching him make ‘lips sealed’ gestures at her. “You tell your grandma I am no tell-tale!” she said definitely before staggering out through the door.
“She has got to learn to hold her liquor,” Lemon muttered to herself. “And she needs to get herself a man already.”
“Talking to yourself?” asked Henry as he appeared at her side with two drinks in his hands.
“Not now you’re here,” she told him with a smile, catching sight of her grandma watching from across the room and knowing he really had to sell the bit. “Let’s dance, baby.”
“Zoe Hart, to opposites,” said Wade, raising a wine glass to clink against her own.
“To opposites,” she toasted and they both drank.
Zoe could hardly believe this was happening. When she woke up this morning, she felt so bad and completely expected to have the worst day ever. Now, here she was, having dinner with Wade, the man she loved, who was looking at her like he couldn’t love her more. It was kind of perfect, even if there was the underlying tension of ‘What if we screw it up again?’ She was really, really trying to ignore that part.
“Look, Zoe,” said Wade then. “I just wanted to say that I know we are gonna work this time,” he assured her. “And I know that because I have crafted a plan.”
“Well, plans are good,” she agreed, not entirely surely where this was going but intrigued nonetheless.
“Yeah, because I was thinkin’, the last time we tried to do this, we kinda started things off backwards, you know, with the sex,” he reminded her, as if she could forget. “And I’m not knocking the sex. The sex was real good.”
“No arguments from over here,” Zoe agreed, unsure how after everything that had passed between them she could possibly be blushing right now, and yet she felt her cheeks burn anyway.
“But this time,” Wade continued, “I think maybe we should do things the way they’re supposed to be done. You know, I want to take you out on dates, to dinner, to the movies, even the crappy ones with the subtitles that you seem to like,” he told her, making her smile. “And after the movie, I want to take you home, I want to kiss you good night and wonder if I should call you again.”
“You’re going to wonder about that?” Zoe checked.
Wade smiled what she called his church social smile inside her own head. “That was a joke,” he told her, much to her relief. “My point is that I think it’s just gonna work this time, ‘cause we’re gonna take things slow. You know, build a solid foundation before... everything else happens.”
“Everything else,” Zoe echoed, nodding her head. “That makes sense.”
It was incredibly sweet actually that Wade had taken the time to think about this, to make a plan. He really had grown up so much since they first met and Zoe was happy to know that she had to. Wade talked before about becoming a better man and he certainly had, but Zoe was a better woman too. They deserved each other now, they knew how to be what each other needed, and they had the chance to start from the very beginning and get it right this time.
“So, it’s a good plan?” Wade check, apparently nervous that maybe he was wrong.
Zoe reached across to put her hand over his on the table. “It’s a great plan,” she promised, picking up her glass with her free hand. “To starting again and taking it slow,” she suggested.
“To starting again,” Wade agreed as they clinked glasses one more time, smiling at each other, “and taking it slow.”