Cause and Effect

This is a very short missing scene one shot from Episode 3.06. Because you know that the ride from Cincinnati was a long one for Avery and Zoey. My thoughts on how this played out.

Avery, Zoey, Juliette and the baby all belong to ABC and Callie Khouri. I own nothing.

Enjoy and I would love to hear your thoughts in the review section!

It was coincidence, really, that she'd gotten kicked off the tour at the same time he would be heading back to Nashville. Or maybe it was cause and effect. Who knew. But she was relieved to have a ride home from Cincinnati.

She'd known Avery wouldn't feel like talking. They'd been friends long enough for her to know that he never really said more than he had to about any given topic, especially when it was the topic of his personal life. And this was ... extremely personal.

Zoey thought back to a few months before, when she'd begged him for information about his relationship with Juliette on their way to the gig with Deacon. She'd seen them together at the older man's Bluebird recording, and she'd noted that he was writing love songs and seemed to smile more. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. But he never told her anything, despite her begging. She just knew he was happy.

Looking to her left, it was obvious that the man in the driver's seat was anything but happy. He was sober, at least, which was progress, but the intensity in his eyes and the way he gripped the steering wheel indicated that he had a battle raging in his mind.

She had begun to wonder if the entire four hours would be spent in silence. They were just south of Louisville, more than halfway through the trip before he spoke. His first words surprised her.

"You knew ... didn't you? About the baby. That's why you called me, right?"

Zoey sighed. She wanted to deny it, to play dumb, but it had been why she called him. The fact that her boss was pregnant with her friend's baby had been weighing on her since she found out. She had kept her mouth shut, but had to fight calling him several times. Finally, she nodded. "I overheard her talking to her assistant. Are you okay?"

"She told me in a text message," he said, shaking his head.

"What?!" She really couldn't believe what she was hearing. A text?!

A wry laugh spilled from his mouth as he glanced over to the passenger seat. "Yeah. Four words. 'I'm pregnant, It's yours.' That was it. Then she ... she wouldn't even face me after that. Now suddenly she's issuing ultimatums."

"What do you mean?" Zoey asked cautiously. She knew this was what had been on his mind for hours, and she didn't want to push him too far.

"When she kicked you out of your room, she asked me if I came for her or for the baby." His voice shook at the word baby, and Zoe's heart broke for him. "I didn't have a good answer for her. Still don't. She said that she only kept the baby because it was mine and that I had a choice. Either I'm all in with her and the baby or she's doing it alone."

She could see how difficult the whole situation was. And at that moment, she hated Juliette Barnes. Not for firing her, although that didn't help, but for doing this to Avery. "What do you want?" she asked softly, prodding him to continue.

"I don't know what I want, Zoey," he said, taking a deep breath. "I mean, I'm not ready to have a kid. It wasn't in my plans. Not for the immediate future anyway. I wanted to be settled, have a career. I've got none of that."

"Plans have a way of changing when the birth control fails." She knew the joke fell flat as soon as she said it. But he simply glared over at her briefly.

"Yeah." He shook his head. "I don't know what to do. I don't want turn my back on my kid. I'd be doing the same thing my dad did to me when I decided to make music my life. I don't want to be that kind of father. The kind who's kid grows up to resent his parents for not supporting them... for not being around. But at the same time ... I can't forget everything that happened. Every time I look at her, I have this vision of her ... and him together. It makes me sick. Am I supposed to just forget that it happened?"

Zoey didn't have an answer. So instead she posed a question of her own. "Do you still love her?"

She waited patiently for him to respond, and as minutes ticked by and she could see the emotion written all over his face. Finally he nodded. "That's the trouble ... for some reason I can't explain, I do still love her. But I don't trust her. I don't trust that she won't break me again. But is that a good enough reason to walk away from a child, who didn't do anything wrong?"

"Why do you have to choose?" Zoey asked. "I know that's what she told you, but the reality is that it's your kid, Avery. You have as much right to be a part of it's life as she does. That's not dependent you on being with her or not."

For a while he let her words sink in. "For it to work, I can't keep holding onto that other stuff. We're going to have to interact, because of the baby, and I'll have to forgive her."

"Do you think you can?" she asked, eyebrow raised in his direction.

"I think I've wanted to for a while," he admitted in a whisper. "But now I have a good reason to justify it in my mind. I just couldn't before. And it was killing me. It made me someone I didn't even recognize anymore. You saw that first hand."

Zoey nodded. "You have been a bit of a disaster lately. Do you think you're past that?"

She watched as reality of the situation began to set in. She could see the desire to not screw this up in his eyes, and it made her proud of him. "I wouldn't want to be a part of this kid's life if I wasn't."

"So that's that," she said with a smile. "You're going to be a dad!"

"Yeah. Some dad, I don't even have a place for a kid to sleep." He had accepted his fate as a father, but Zoey knew that he was still dealing with a lot of self doubt. She could hear it in his voice. "I live in a tiny studio apartment. I barely have enough room for me. Much less a crib ... and diapers and ..." his voice faded out.

She shook her head at him. "That kind of stuff won't matter. Plus, things are looking up, Mr. CMA Nominee."

He smiled briefly at the comment, but then shot another glare in her direction. "One hit song, one nomination doesn't make a person a success. I'm going to have to figure all that out. And soon."

Zoey watch panic morph onto his face, and she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Success as a parent is about making sure your child is loved. It has nothing to do with how many rooms your home has or how much money you have in the bank."

"Which is a good thing," he said. "Because I am way behind the curve on that one."

"You can't compare yourself to Juliette," she responded sternly. She would be damned if Juliette was going to make him feel like the inferior parent. As his friend, she knew he would have to be reassured ... about all of it. Pushing aside her ill feelings toward Avery's ex, she tried to be encouraging. "Especially if the two of you are going to work together on this."

Sighing, he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel nervously. "This isn't going to be easy."

"No one ever said life was easy," she said, shooting a smile in his direction. "And that's what this is. It's life. And it's a new life that you two created. You need to talk to her. Tell her what you told me. That you want to be this baby's father, but that you aren't in a position to be with her. She'll have to respect that. And the two of you will have to learn how to work together. For the baby."

And as the pair neared Nashville, Zoey knew that the road that lay ahead for Avery, Juliette and the baby wasn't going to be easy. But she could only hope that they figured everything out. In her heart, she knew they would, one way or another.