When Zoe woke up Sunday morning and went downstairs she saw that Harley had left her a note saying that he had gone to church. He had asked her if she wanted to join him the first week she was in Bluebell, but she had declined, and since then he hadn't raised the topic again. Zoe was grateful for that, and for the fact that he hadn't woken her this morning before he left – she hadn't been able to get to sleep until after 3am.

Normally she studied while Harley was at church, but she was still not really feeling like her normal self so she decided she would do some exercise instead. In New York she had been somewhat obsessive about exercise, working out on the elliptical trainer in her room several times a week, always while watching recorded episodes of Sex and the City. She loved that show.

However, since coming to Bluebell she had not been exercising at all, unless you counted gym class – which she did not. And as a future cardiothoracic surgeon she felt she had a responsibility to keep in shape. Unless she was mistaken, there was no gym in Bluebell, and she preferred to exercise without other people around anyway, so she decided to go for a walk/jog. She'd take it slow for now, exploring some of the roads and trails on the outskirts of town, where she should have more privacy – especially with everyone at church. She could always up the pace once she was more familiar with the area.

As she put on her training shorts and tank top and laced up her sneakers, she tried to imagine implementing her old exercise routine here at Harley's place. The thought was ridiculous. They didn't even get HBO, but if they did there would be no way on earth that Zoe would have watched a show like Sex and the City in Harley's house. He would die of shock and she would be so embarrassed she wouldn't be able to enjoy it. In a weird way it seemed kind of strange to her now that she'd never worried about her parent's thoughts on the show when she had watched it in New York. Still the relationship she had with her mom and dad was completely different to whatever it was that she and Harley were.

She headed out of the house and down the road in the direction that led away from town, realizing half way down the block that she hadn't given a single second's thought to locking the door as she left. Wow, maybe was picking up some Bluebellian ways. She would have to watch out for that for when she got back to New York.

As she jogged along she tried to come up with a plan for how to tackle the Wade situation. She wanted to apologize to him, but she didn't want to make a big deal out of things, or let on that Harley had told her about why he might have reacted the way he had. She just wanted to clear the air and get rid of any awkwardness. But how the hell was she going to do that?

She still hadn't come up with any ideas twenty minutes later. She slowed to a walk as she made her way up a pretty, sloping road that curved off to the left ahead of her. So this was the country. If she didn't have her discman earphones lodged firmly in her ears blocking the sound she bet she would even be able to hear birds chirping or something. She had to admit it was very pretty around here though, especially these tree-lined roads. Maybe she could get used to jogging outdoors instead of exercising while listening to Carrie and her friends discuss their adventures on Sex and the City. When she got back to New York perhaps she could jog in Central Park… Of course she'd have to carry mace or something with her, but still, it might be nice.

Then, out of nowhere, something – no, someone - slammed into her so hard that she went flying back onto the road, cracking her head into the asphalt road when she fell.

"Woah! Are you okay? Was that your head that made that noise?!" She heard his voice before he came into her line of vision, as she gingerly tried to sit up. It was Wade. He was wearing a pair of shorts and sneakers, but no t-shirt and he was covered in sweat. Obviously he pushed himself a bit harder on his runs than she did.

She surveyed the damage. She had pretty much landed on her butt - and her head, which was throbbing. A massive lump was forming fast on the back of her skull, and she had a fairly bad scrape up the back of her right thigh, from around where her shorts ended down nearly to the back of her knee. It was bleeding quite a bit, but it didn't look too deep. She looked around for something to staunch the blood flow but there was nothing. Wade wasn't even wearing a shirt that she could have used.

"Zoe? Are you alright? You're bleeding…" Wade asked again, looking worried, and suddenly she felt tears roll from her eyes – completely out of her control. That made her embarrassed, which in turn made her angry. She took it out on him.

"Do I LOOK alright Wade?! What the hell were you thinking, running that fast around a corner without even checking to see if anyone was coming the other way?" She knew, even as she said it, that she was being completely unreasonable. When she had set out this way on her jog she hadn't expected to see even a passing car – after all, everyone was supposed to be in church. No doubt the last thing Wade had expected was to come across a fellow runner. But she couldn't stop herself. "Aren't you supposed to be in CHURCH anyway, with everyone else?!" she spat at him.

To his credit, he didn't take the bait. He smiled slightly as he said, "Not a big churchgoer, I'm afraid…"

She was not amused. "And why the hell aren't you wearing a shirt? We could at least staunch the blood flow if you had a damn shirt!"

He tried somewhat successfully not to smile at how crazy she was acting as he said, "I tell you what: my house isn't far away. I'll run and grab something. I'll be back in a few minutes." He had started running as he said the last sentence and before she knew it he was out of sight. She yelled out, "Do NOT leave me here Wade Kinsella!" But there was no answer as she heard his footsteps sprinting away.

By the time he got back, maybe ten minutes later, she had calmed down considerably and was feeling rather embarrassed about her outburst. She had retrieved her discman from where it had fallen in the grassy verge of the road and it was completely fine. She wished that she had fallen there too, instead of on the hard asphalt. She also wished she hadn't gone quite so crazy at Wade.

When he pulled up in an ancient truck, wearing a t-shirt now, she smiled at him sheepishly before cautiously getting to her feet. He jumped down from the truck and helped her over to the passenger side, where he gave her a hand towel for the scrape on her leg and physically lifted her into the cab of the truck. The only other time she ever remembered being lifted like this was when he had saved her from falling the day before at the library, and it felt a bit surreal. What was it with him and the chivalrous rescuing?

She knew the trip would be short so she decided to jump right in to her apology. It was like ripping off a bandaid: best to get it over with as quickly as possible.

"I'm sorry about acting like a psycho bitch before," she said, sneaking a sideways look at him.

"Not a problem," he replied with a slight smirk at her choice of words.

"And listen, I'm sorry about yesterday as well," she continued. "I really didn't mean anything by what I said."

"It's okay. I s'pose I reacted more than was necessary. Guess I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder… and a short fuse… Anyway, I think it's my turn to apologize now, don't you?" he said, nodding towards the blood stained towel she was holding to her thigh.

She shrugged at him, replying, "Accidents happen."

Zoe looked out the window to avoid his gaze, which seemed a bit intense, and was surprised to see that they are driving straight past her street – well, Harley's street.

"You just passed Harley's street," she tells him.

"I know. I'm taking you into town. Dr. Wilkes would skin me alive if I didn't bring you in so that he could check you over himself."

She laughed. "Harley doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of person to skin someone alive! He's always so… mild."

"Most of the time, yeah," Wade agreed. "But believe me, he can be scary when he wants to."

She raised her eyebrows at him doubtfully.

"No, seriously," he carried on. "I remember this one time, when my brother Jesse purposely disabled the brake on our go-kart and then encouraged me to take it for a spin down the road in front of our house…"

Zoe gasped in shock – that was a terrible thing for a brother to do! "Oh my god, did you get hurt?"

"Well, luckily the wheel alignment on our little vehicle wasn't the best and it veered off the road into a huge patch of poison ivy. Dr. Wilkes gave me somethin' that fixed me up right away, but let me tell you, Jesse was scarred for life by the time the doctor was done with him! He was terrifyin'! The weird thing was he never even raised his voice once. No siree – I'm not to risk getting on the wrong side of Harley Wilkes!"

She laughed. But then she realized what that meant. There was no way she was going to let him pull up in front of the church and have the whole town crowd around while Harley tended to her injuries. "Okay, I get it: going to see Harley is non-negotiable. But can you please park around the corner and just get him to come and meet us at the clinic? I don't want to be the center of attention in Town Square on a Sunday morning!"

"I think I can do that," he agreed.

Wade understood why she wouldn't want the whole town looking on when the doctor checked her over, so when they reached the center of town he pulled into a street a block over from the church and got out of the truck. He spotted Harley straight away, talking to Agnes from the bakery right in front of the church, so he walked over and interrupted them politely, asking Agnes if he can borrow Harley for a while.

Wade was more aware than most of how much some people in Bluebell love to gossip, so he made sure to get Harley out of earshot before telling him what was going on. Harley wanted to go straight to the truck to check on Zoe, but Wade explained that Zoe would prefer to stay out of the spotlight and just meet at the clinic, and Harley reluctantly agreed to go along with his suggestion.

Thirty minutes later Harley emerged from the consultation room and into the waiting room, where Wade was flicking through an old fishing magazine. As usual he looked as though he didn't have a care in the world, but he was actually trying very hard to distract himself from all the memories of the time he had spent here during his mom's long illness.

"She alright, Dr. Wilkes?" he asks, standing.

"She's fine. Thank you for taking care of her. If you hadn't been there it would have taken her a long time to walk into town."

"I hadn't been there she wouldn't have fallen in the first place," Wade responded matter-of-factly. "In any case," he carried on, "she wouldn't have come into town. She was all ready to just go home and take care of everything herself… but I knew you'd want to look after her yourself."

"You're right about that. Actually, you did well to convince her to do what you suggested - she's usually pretty determined to do things her own way…"

"Yeah, I must say I've noticed that," Wade smirked. "But, I don't know… She didn't really fight me once she knew I wasn't going to dump her in the middle of town square to be fixed up in front of the whole town."

"Hmmm," Harley said thoughtfully, "well it seems she trusts you. Thank you Wade – really."

"Like I said, it was my fault in the first place."

"Even still…"

Just then Zoe came out of the consultation room.

Harley looked at her and asked, "Zoe, would you mind if Wade drove you home? I'll be home soon myself, but everyone saw me rush off after talking to Wade and I just want to go back and let them know that everything is okay – before they start making up their own version of events. I am guessing you would rather go straight home…" he gestured vaguely at her thigh and Wade watched as she realized for the first time that her already short shorts had ripped where she had fallen. The edge of her underwear was now visible through the rip, and she quickly agreed that yes, she would prefer to go straight home.

She followed Wade out to his truck, climbing into the cab by herself this time, as Harley again assured her he would be home just as soon as he could. Wade was fairly sure that Harley was going back to Town Square to tell everyone about Zoe because he knew that if he didn't they would jump to conclusions and assume that Wade had come for his help with Earl in some kind of alcohol-induced trouble, again. Harley was good man, always looking out for people and trying the best he could to defuse gossip when he had a chance – and that was no easy feat in Bluebell.

The drive back was uneventful, and Wade made an effort not to look at Zoe because he could see she was feeling self-conscious about the revealing rip in her shorts. There it was again, he realized: that strange urge he had to make her feel less uncomfortable, instead of teasing her and using it as an opportunity to flirt. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

Wade had made sure Zoe was settled in at home and following the doctor's orders to rest up and put ice on the lump on her head, and was just about to get in his truck to go home when Harley pulled in to the driveway.

"That was quick," Wade said to him.

"Yes. I know she's fine, but I wanted to make sure she was resting. Thank you again for your help Wade."

"Not a problem," Wade replied, and climbed into the truck. He was ready to head off, but then Harley came over to the driver's side window, which was open, and said, "I've been thinking of paying your dad a visit Wade. How is he doing these days? I haven't seen him in town much lately."

"Nah, he doesn't get out much – which is probably good thing."

"Well I figured it might be hard to get him to come in for a checkup, so, if it's alright with you, I thought I might drop by later and check in on him."

"Sure – just to let you know though, he might not be in the best shape for receiving visitors."

Wade knew that Harley would know what he meant. He had always been good about dealing with Earl. He didn't try to stick his nose in where it wasn't wanted, but he kept an eye on Earl's health and had always tried to look out for them. Suddenly Wade made a decision. It wasn't his way to ask for help, but he still hadn't worked out the $250 medical bill situation and, being a doctor, Harley would be sure to know about things like alcohol exclusion clauses. More importantly, Harley knew how to respect people's privacy.

"Actually, Doctor Wiles," he said uncomfortably, "I was wondering if I could ask you a favor…?"

"Of course, Wade. What can I do for you?"

"I'd rather we left the specifics until you come over, if that's alright?" He raised his eyes to the front porch, where Zoe had come out to see why it was taking Harley so long to come inside.

"Sure thing, son. In that case I'll come around later this afternoon." His face didn't give much away but Wade got the impression that Harley didn't mind in the slightest that Wade had asked for his help. He wasn't looking forward to sharing such private information with someone, but at the same time he somehow felt under a bit less pressure now that he knew Harley would help him figure out what was going on.