A/N: So, apparently, it's become a tradition that whenever I watch episodes of Hart of Dixie, I have to write a fix-it fic right after. It's kind of therapeutic, especially on these painful Zoe/Wade break-up episodes :( Anyway, this is a version of what could happen, even though I know it won't, but whatever. I feel better for having written it and maybe you peops will want to read it.
(Disclaimer: All recognisable characters and dialogue from Hart of Dixie belong to Leila Gerstein and other folks who aren't me)
Somewhere Down The Road
Each morning when she got up, Zoe felt a little better about life, or at least, she didn't feel any worse. It was never easy getting over a break-up, and this one hurt more than any other she had known, because she had really put her heart into her relationship with Wade.
True enough, she had never actually said 'I love you' and neither had he, but now more than ever, Zoe knew that was what she was feeling. There was no way his cheating and the consequential loss of him from her daily life could have hurt this much if it wasn't love.
"Keep it together," she told herself as she hopped out of bed and went into the bathroom.
She started her usual morning routine, showering, brushing her teeth, picking out clothes, all the normal things. Next was unplugging her phone from the charger and checking her messages. Zoe wasn't so surprised to see she had a voicemail, just curious as to who might have left it. Sitting down on the edge of the bed to put on her shoes, Zoe propped the phone between her shoulder and her head to listen. She nearly dropped her cell altogether when the message started playing and she heard his achingly familiar voice.
"Hey there, doc. Well, I figure this is my best shot at this. I saw you go up to the house for dinner with Lavon and all you seemed to be carrying was a bottle of wine, so I figure your phone is sitting right there on your nightstand. Meant I was guaranteed to get your voicemail, and honestly? That's what I was going for.
"I guess when you have something to say to someone and you're too much of a coward to say it all to their face, well, folks used to write letters once. I was never much with words either way, but I talk better than I write at least, so thank God for voicemail, huh?
"Okay, so I gotta start with the most important thing here, and I know you heard it all before but I'm gonna say it again anyway. I am so sorry, Zoe. That night, I swear to God, it is gonna haunt me for the rest of my life, even though I barely remember most of it. It's just there in my head, along with the look on your face when we were sat on the bench in the town square and you told me you couldn't get past what I did.
"Zoe, baby, I know I hurt you, but you gotta know I hurt me too. I... I hate myself for what I did to you, and for what I did to me, but hey, I guess I proved what I always knew in the end. I was gonna screw up, doc. I always knew that.
"Before, when we had that casual monogamous thing going on, the truth is that as much as I hated it, I knew it was better. You were using me then, Zoe, and we both know it, but I let you, because like I said, it came easy. Just sex, no strings, that I know how to do, but it wasn't what I wanted, not really.
"Man, I was an ass in the beginning, huh? Right after Tucker's not-a-wedding, telling you it all meant nothing. Darlin', nothing and nobody ever meant as much to me as you. I don't think they ever will. Anyway, before I get any more turned around with this... Uh, that day when you came over to my place and you sat there and asked me to be your boyfriend, damnit, doc, that was the happiest I thought I could get. I don't think anything ever made me prouder than walking around this town with everybody knowing you were my girlfriend.
"This probably all sounds like crap to you now. So happy, so proud, why'd I screw it up, right? Yeah, I've been wonderin' that myself. Truth is, it's like I said, screwing up is what I do, doc. Feels like everybody is just waiting for it to happen, me more than anyone. That night, before Battle of the Bands, you just... you had all this faith in me, and that was great. Zoe, it was amazing that you could look at me and be that sure that I could really succeed, you know? Then my mind started running away by itself. What if I can't do it? What if I never become the man you thought I could be?
"I got no illusions, Zoe. I ain't good enough for you, never was, probably never will be. I thought for a while I could try, but in the end, I was always gonna let you down. I guess I went ahead and did the worst thing I could do under my own terms just to get it over with. Not that I'm sayin' I set out to hurt you, I couldn't ever, but... well, there's not much else I can tell you that you'd want to hear about that night, I know. I just need you to know that I am truly sorry, Zoe, and I'm gonna be sorry for the rest of my life, because I lost you."
Zoe swallowed hard, tears having welled up in her eyes as she listened to Wade's message. When he fell silent, she thought he was done, then suddenly he cleared his throat and carried on, sounding less clear than before. She was almost certain he had made himself cry, and it set tears trickling down her own cheeks just to realise it.
"Uh, the other thing I wanted to tell you is... is that I did love you, Zoe Hart. I still love you, and I honestly don't see that changing any time soon. Doesn't matter if you don't feel the same or if you never did. I thought maybe you did for a while, but now? Well, I can't exactly blame you if you do hate me, even though you said you didn't before. I just need you to believe that no matter how stupid what I did was, and I know it was damn stupid, believe me, it doesn't change the fact that I love you. Just proves I'm an idiot, and hey, we both knew that already.
"That just leaves one last thing to cover. Uh, I know it's tough on you, trying to be wherever I'm not all of the time. It's tough on me too, so I came up with an answer. Even stupid people have a good idea sometimes, right? Well, here's mine; I'm leaving. In fact, by the time you listen to this message, I ought to be long gone. Tell Lavon that..."
Zoe didn't hear what came after that, she just got up from the edge of the bed and started running. Out of the bedroom, straight out through the front door and around the lake, as fast as she could in her towering heels. She rushed up the steps to the gatehouse and pushed hard on the door which flew open, unlocked and unbarred.
"Wade?" she yelled, and yet she knew there was no point.
The gatehouse was devoid of all personal effects, every scrap of anything that would prove that Wade ever lived there, except for one lone box on the table. Zoe's hand shot to her mouth as she realised the box was for her, containing half a dozen items of hers that she must have left over at Wade's place when they were together. Looking from that to her cell, she realised the voicemail was still playing and she quickly put the phone back to her ear.
"... never see me again, which will probably suit you just fine. You and everybody else in town, I guess. Anyway, one last time, since it's probably the last chance I'm ever gonna get, I love you, Zoe Hart. I swear I am always gonna love you. Okay, I'm done. Goodbye, doc."
When the message was over, Zoe immediately started it playing again, sinking down to sit on the edge of Wade's bed this time instead of her own. He was gone, maybe if she listened again she would find he said where, but even a half hour later when Zoe had played the whole thing and listened to every word at least a half a dozen times, she was no further forward. Wade was sorry and he loved her and he was gone, that was all he really told her in that message, and the message was all she really had left of him, whether she liked it or not.
Two years later...
"You're going to love this place, Zoe," her friend Chantelle told her as they headed on down the street, fighting against the cold New York wind. "It's got this whole southern vibe, you'll feel right at home."
"Honey, it's your bachelorette party, why are we going to a bar that I'd like?" she asked, laughing for no real reason other than she had already had a couple more drinks than she normally would.
"Chantelle likes any bar with booze in it," said Alyssa, slurring some and staggering more.
"You too, apparently," Zoe told her with a smile. "But I guess that's what we're here for."
The half dozen women travelled on down the street, Zoe pulling her jacket tighter around her body. New York felt so much colder than she remembered, but then she had been living in Bluebell for almost four years now. Cold there was nothing like this and even the booze wasn't keeping her warm tonight. At least she would be heading home again in a couple of days once the wedding had happened. She really hadn't felt like she belonged in New York for a very long time, so maybe a southern themed bar wouldn't be so bad.
"Woah, girls. This is the place!" Chantelle cried happily, dragging her friends to the door.
Zoe was caught in the middle of the group, not even getting a chance to see the name of the place at first. They were inside, heading towards the actual bar to order before she noticed the neon lights that told her where she was. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of the familiar blue logo. She ought to know it. After all, she had a hand in designing it once.
"No way!" she gasped, dropping down onto a stool very hard.
"Well, hello, ladies," said a voice behind the bar. "Little bird told me there was a bride-to-be somewhere in amongst you girls."
Zoe turned on her stool to face him, unsure how to breathe never mind speak as their eyes met. All around her, her friends chattered, trying to flirt, trying to order. Zoe heard very little, but Wade, it seemed, was hearing even less. He was oblivious to what was going on around him, even after Zoe realised that she really should do something about her friends all making a fuss.
"Um, hey, maybe we could get a table," she told them all. "I feel like I'm going to fall from this stool. We can have drinks brought over, right?" she said, looking to Wade, hardly able to meet his eyes.
"Sure," he told her, nodding his head.
Though Alyssa and Natalie both complained about going further away from the hottie behind the bar, they did move eventually. The six women gathered around a table and someone other than Wade eventually came to take their order and then deliver their drinks. Zoe was relieved and disappointed all at the same time, though none of her friends seemed to have noticed that she was quiet yet. Her eyes were scanning the room all the time, not just to see if she could spot Wade again, but mostly because she was taking in the details of the bar, of Wade's Place.
It was a little like the Rammer Jammer, but not altogether the same. It did have that southern vibe that Chantelle mentioned, country music from an old-fashioned looking jukebox in the corner, the whole nine yards. Mostly the feeling Zoe got from the place was that it belonged to Wade, but then she knew that from the sign when she walked in. Turning around in her seat, she finally saw the man himself again, behind the bar, talking to another bartender.
"I have to go," she said jumping up very fast, "um, to check my messages," she said, waving her cell on her hand.
She had almost said she was going to the bathroom, but at least a couple of her friends would probably want to come with her for that. As a doctor, she had to keep a check on her messages, so it was a much better way to get away from the group. Hurrying over to the bar, she got back on the too high stool near where Wade was standing just seconds before he turned around.
"Hey, there, doc," he greeted her with that church social smile she had missed so much.
"Hey, yourself," she replied, smiling back at him. "It's been a while."
"Really has," he said, nodding his head, leaning his arms on the bar to get down to her level, just like he used to back home in Bluebell years before. "You doing okay?"
"I am," she told him. "I would ask you the same thing but... wow," she said, gesturing at the bar around them. "This is amazing, Wade. Truly amazing."
"It's okay," he told her, shrugging his shoulders. "It's weird but it turns out you can get people to invest in the darndest things in New York. The kind of bar I wanted, they're a dime a dozen in 'Bama, but up here? All kinds of different and special. Makes folks want to hand over their cash."
"That was some smart thinking, cowboy," said Zoe, shaking her head in wonder. "I'm just so... I don't know, I guess I just never thought for a second that this is where you'd end up."
"Me either," he told her, glancing away. "When I left I just knew I needed to be far away from Bluebell, from all the folks that knew me, especially you," he said, meeting her eyes then. "Fact is, doc, I couldn't get you out of my head, not ever. New York seemed sort of obvious after a while. You weren't here, I knew that, but somehow, I was closer to you just being here. Makes no sense, does it?" he said, bashful as she'd ever seen him.
"Actually, it makes a lot of sense," she told him, swallowing hard. "I think it's why I stayed in Bluebell so long. Wade..."
"You ever hear the message I left you that night?" he asked, pulling his hand away before hers could land on top. "I had a feelin' you'd realise it was me and delete it before you heard even the first part-"
He stopped speaking abruptly when he heard his own voice echoing back. Not echoing exactly, it wasn't the words he was saying now but those he had said then, coming right out of the speaker on Zoe's cell. Wade blinked at the phone and then at her.
"I couldn't delete it," she told him, shaking her head, even as she stopped the message playing. "I listened to it maybe a dozen times that first day, and then every day for a long time after. Every once in a while, I'd just call it up and play even just a little bit, just to... to hear your voice," she explained, smiling even as tears fell unchecked from her eyes. "You have no idea how much I missed you."
"Oh, I know, doc. Believe me," he told her, nodding his head. "Didn't think anything was gonna hurt as much as realising how much I hurt you, Zoe, but not seeing you all this time. It's damned near killed me."
"You chose to leave," she reminded him, sniffing hard and swiping at the tears on her cheeks. "I didn't want that."
"I didn't know what else to do, doc," he told her, looking almost as if he was going to cry too by now. "Couldn't stand what I'd done to you, knew I couldn't deserve you, so-"
"So, you went out and proved you could be exactly the man I always knew you were," she told him, shaking her head. "You got the bar. You didn't seem to think that you could but you did. If that was possible, didn't it occur to you that maybe we could've been too?"
Wade frowned a little at that and then shook his head.
"What are you saying to me, doc?"
"I'm saying... I'm saying I can't forget what happened, but I forgave you a long time ago. I knew how sorry you were and... and you were right in what you said in your message. I did love you and I thought maybe at some point I'd stopped, but then I walked in here and saw you... Wade, I-"
Laughter erupted from the table where Zoe's friends were sat, catching her attention. She looked over to see them all making hand gestures and mouthing words, clearly approving of her attempts to pick up the bartender. It broke the tension at least, making her laugh too as she turned back to Wade.
"I think they have the wrong idea," she said, shaking her head. "They don't realise who you are."
"They think I'm the bartender," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe they figured out I was the manager too. Can't say they're wrong on either count."
"You're so much more than those things," said Zoe, managing to grab a hold of his hand before he could get away this time. "You always were, you just didn't know it."
"Zoe, I can't... I can't ever make up for what I did," he told her sadly.
"It was a long time ago, Wade" she reminded him. "I'm not saying it didn't hurt, because it did, but... but time heals and maybe, if you wanted to, we could... well, maybe we could get to know each other again? I really have missed you, so much."
There was a long pause and then suddenly his hand moved under hers, entwining their fingers as he leaned in closer again.
"I guess this is as good as I'm gonna get," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Still not convinced I deserve you but if you want to give it a shot... You sure about this, doc?" he checked.
"Yeah, I think so," she told him, nodding her head. "You?"
He didn't have words to answer her, not a single one. Instead he pushed forward just a little bit more and pressed his lips to hers in a single sweet kiss that set the table of bachelorettes hooting and hollering at the display.
Zoe and Wade broke apart, both grinning like fools. God only knew what would happen next, if they could work things out or not, but at least they were going to get a chance to try at last. That wasn't nothing.
The End
IMPORTANT: For those that don't know, I'm watching Hart of Dixie for the first time and trying to avoid spoilers, so while I will be extremely grateful for any reviews I might get on this story I would appreciate nothing that might spoil me for anything past s2e17. Many thanks in advance :)