A/N - I sense some impatience on the part of some reviewers. I'm sorry about the delay in updating, but as I told one reviewer in a PM, this has been the hardest chapter to write so far. Bear with me, I have re-oriented myself by the fire, and since we are closer to the end than the beginning I may pick up the pace a bit. For those of you chomping at the bit, remember I warned you, but I think you'll like the finished product.

Disclaimer - Own I not this Hart of Dixie

Ch. 10

Wade walked out of the Rammer Jammer wearing his squarish sunglasses and the Panama hat Lemon had given him and carrying his duffel bag, which he threw in the back seat of his car. Earl was already behind the wheel. Wade had just opened the passenger side door when Lemon ran out of the bar. He had an urge to get in the car, but he knew what was coming and decided he should just stand up and take it like a man.

Lemon ran up to him at full speed and embraced him. Wade thought for a fleeting moment that for the fortuitous placement of his head she would have kissed him. On the mouth. She didn't, she merely gave him a very tight squeeze.

"Come back safe, all right?" Lemon said as she stepped away, holding Wade by the shoulders. Wade nodded once, and not knowing anything else to say, got in the car and they drove away.

"Let's stop by the plantation, I want to see Lavon before I go," Wade said, and Earl nodded.

When they got there Wade walked around to the kitchen entrance, rapped on the door and eased in, where he found Lavon and Annabeth.

"I'm leaving now," Wade said.

Both Lavon and Annabeth, who were sitting at the counter, looked at him sadly as if he were sailing off to the ends of the earth. Lavon was still wearing his arm in a sling to help the shoulder heal.

Finally the Mayor broke the silence. "Good luck"

Annabeth nodded her assent, then pointed to Wade's head. "Are you gonna wear that hat to New York City?"

Wade shook his head as if bothered by mosquitoes. "Lemon's idea."

"Mmm."

They stood there for a few moments, the three of them, but with nothing else to say Wade turned and went back to the car, where he took off his hat before he got in and tossed it in the back seat.

"Let's go."

"Gotta make a stop at my house then we're off," Earl said. Wade didn't say anything.

When they got there, Earl pulled up in front and ran inside, saying he'd be right back. He was, and about five minutes later they hit the road.

Neither man seemed inclined to talk. Earl just drove, Wade just looked out the window with his sunglasses on or straight ahead. They drove in silence all the way to Mobile, where they picked up the interstate and headed northeast. As Earl drove up the on-ramp he decided to break the silence.

"This engine really hums."

"It's a good car."

Silence again.

"You ever been up north?" Earl finally asked.

Wade just turned and looked at him, still with the sunglasses on.

"'Cause I was just thinkin' you'll need long johns, a parka, and gloves," Earl went on. "You've lived your life over fifty degrees, and…"

"Earl, I'm not ten, OK?" Wade snapped.

"You'll thank me later," Earl sniffed, "probably won't find any until Virginia…"

"Earl, I'm tryin' to think, OK?"

"Think about what?" Earl said casually, absent-mindedly running his hand through his hair.

"What am I going to do when I find her? Assuming I find her. Just pay attention to the road, old man."

"Wade," Earl shook his head, "you're over thinking this, and that isn't good because one, thinking isn't your strong suit, and two, the head isn't much use in matters of the heart. You'll know what to say when you see her."

"Thinking isn't my strong suit?" Wade grinned in mock outrage.

"No, it isn't. Doing is your strong suit."

They drove on for many miles in complete and comfortable silence.

"Did I ever tell you the story of the first time your mother and I met?" Earl asked, and Wade only grinned and settled himself back in his seat. His father had told this story many times, each time with a new little twist or fillip that may or may not be true but made for a colorful story, and once he had asked the question there was no stopping him from telling it. "Before you were born they had an Emporium on Front St. by the water that had two stories, and you got up to the second floor by these big wide stairs on the side of the building. I was coming up those stairs one afternoon, I'd been up since before dawn and was dog-tired, and your mama was grazing through the sale table by the top of the stairs and saw me coming up, and she just watched me come up them stairs and turn and walk right past her without even seeing her and she told me later she knew right then I was for her. She told me this after we were married. I was so shy, though…" Earl shook his head and grinned, "she practically had to paint me a sign that she was mine if I wanted her. I didn't think I had much to offer, and she was the prettiest girl in town…"

"Wait a minute," Wade laughed, "you walked right past mama without even seeing her, but she was the prettiest girl in town?"

"Oh, I saw her all right," Earl said, "but I didn't want her to know I'd seen her, bein' out of my league and all. I was never good with women like you are, son."

Wade just sat and looked out the window. He'd never thought of it like that, being good with women, he'd just smile and hand out compliments and the girls would just swoon. He assumed it worked that way for every man. Why be nervous with this girl when another girl would be coming along any minute? But Zoe could make him nervous. In fact, Wade realized, if Zoe had asked him to stand on his head and spit nickels, he would try, and this was in large part why he was going to New York. Because Zoe made him nervous.

They met up with I-95 in Virginia, where it began to rain, a cold steady rain with temperatures in the mid 40s. They pulled off the interstate in Virginia near a Wal-Mart so they could get long johns, parkas and gloves, and they had a sit-down meal at a Pizza Hut, which was a welcome change from the road snacks they had been filling up on. Because of the weather, though, by the time they got to New Jersey Earl was sneezing and starting to cough, and by the time they got to Zoe's hospital Earl was shivering so bad he could hardly drive. They managed to get the car into long term parking and Earl down to the ER, where the doctors said he was coming down with pneumonia and they admitted him.

Once they got Earl in a regular bed upstairs from the ER, the doctor, a youngish looking man a hair shorter than Wade but much wider, giving the impression not so much of bulk as of solidity, stepped out into the hallway to talk to Wade.

"Mr. Kinsella, Dr. Finelli, I'm treating your dad."

"Call me Wade, he's Earl," Wade said, nodding back toward his father.

Dr. Finelli did a kind of double-take when he heard the name, then went on.

"Earl," Dr. Finelli said carefully, "is presenting with the early stages of bacterial pneumonia. If he were a young man in good health otherwise, I might send him home with a scrip for antibiotics and orders for bed rest, but his system is weakened because of his alcoholism. If it was my dad, I'd want him here."

Wade looked at his work boots.

"How long?"

"Not long, 72 hours tops."

"How am I supposed to pay for this?"

Dr. Finelli just stood there looking at him for a minute.

"Pardon me for asking this, but I couldn't help but notice your accent, and I'm guessing you're not from around here. You wouldn't be from Bluebell Alabama, would you?"

It was Wade's turn to stare. Dr. Finelli took that as a yes.

"You know Zoe Hart, don't you?" the doctor went on, and Wade nodded, still mute. "You're the guy."

"What?" Wade said.

"You're the guy," Dr. Finelli said, shaking his head. "Pleasure to meet you, sir. Enzo Finelli, Brooklyn, New York." He stuck out his hand, and Wade shook it. The doctor's hands were so big Wade thought it was like shaking hands with a catchers mitt. "We're very working-class in Brooklyn."

Wade looked bewildered, so Enzo smiled and went on.

"I assisted on some of her operations, I'm an intern here and got her a couple of times on my surgical rotation. God, she has beautiful hands, don't you think? Not like these babies," he help up his own hands and laughed, "I don't think surgery is in my future, but man, she was great to watch, and she's got that surgeon ice-queen bitch thing DOWN. No offense, though." He took a step back as if maybe he had offended Wade, but it only made Wade smile. She did have that.

"So, like I said, great at work, but after work, my God, I think she was the saddest girl I ever knew. She didn't talk much, kept things neutral, light, but she was like that kid in the Peanuts cartoon with the cloud always over his head. I figured it was a guy, she mentioned a name once, Wade Kinsella, so I just put you and her together."

Wade nodded sadly.

"Have you come for her?" Enzo asked. Wade shrugged. "I haven't seen her since the first of the year, she might have been one of those temps they had to let go. I'll ask around for you. Listen," Enzo leaned in, "it's late, you got a double room here with your dad, I can see you're beat, sack out here tonight. Tomorrow's another day, and maybe I'll have something for you by then. Don't worry about the rest of it, this is a big hospital, things happen," Enzo said cryptically as he turned and left.

Wade walked back into Earl's room and sat down heavily on the other bed. Earl appeared to be sleeping peacefully, an oxygen cannula up his nose and an IV anti-biotic drip attached to his arm. Wade thought Earl looked pretty helpless, and he felt like Earl looked, trapped and helpless. This was the second time, Wade raged at himself, that he had gotten to New York and he was again being thwarted. He shook his head as he lay back on the pillow and put his feet up on the bed. Not this time, he said to himself, I'm not being stopped this time. But Enzo was right, he was beat, if he could just close his eyes for just a few minutes…

It seemed like just a few minutes later, although it was really the next morning, when Enzo came back into Wade's room with the good news.

"I've got an address for you, or at least it's a possibility," Enzo said to Wade as he started to retract the curtain around Wade's bed. "Here," he handed Wade the piece of paper with the address and phone number of the clinic on it. Or rather, he would have handed it to him if Wade had been able to take it, because as he sat up and reached out his hand, he got a stricken look on his face.

"I can't see!"

Zoe had settled into a routine after that first night with Neil. Routines helped to calm her nerves, which she found occasionally to take off on her without warning. She would arrive at work around nine, sit in her office until eleven, take a two hour lunch with two or three martinis and some food to settle her stomach, then come back to the office until four, when she would take off again ostensibly for the house, but actually to a local watering hole where she could catch happy hour and not be disturbed. She'd call ahead for take-out and have it delivered to the house in the cul-de-sac just a few minutes after she arrived, still in her work clothes. She'd take the food into the kitchen, make a pitcher of martinis while the food cooled a little, and she'd change out of her work clothes into the secret flannel shirt, underwear optional. She'd then get into some serious drinking. The only variable was when Neil was there, then they would drink together and have sweaty, desperate sex. Zoe found this satisfactory, since by now she was pretty emotionally numb. She never wore the flannel when Neil was there, that was a rule she made for herself. He liked long flowing nightgowns he could take off and little baby-doll nightgowns he could leave on.

On nights that Neil was not there, Zoe mostly played music and danced in the living room. She couldn't find anything on television that amused her anymore. She found crime shows only exhibiting the worst of human behavior, comedies were idiots being idiots at high volume, and romances were insipid and a lie. Truth was, she fumed, you don't get the man of your dreams because there is no such thing. That's a fantasy that people construct to counter the utter emptiness at the core of their lives.

The winter had turned into what Zoe quickly came to regard as Long Island gray. It might be windy with the gray clouds scudding overhead, ripped into tatters to reveal only more gray clouds, or sometimes deadly calm with fog, so quiet and still it was otherworldly. Her moods began to match the season, which for Long Island was unseasonably warm and wet and for Zoe was just cold and damp and dreary.

Zoe's musical whims had taken her to Miles Davis a couple of times now, in different contexts. In computer parlance, she linked with 'Kind of Blue' thanks to Frank Sinatra, 'In a Silent Way' via 80s fusion music, and she found the chaos of 'Bitches Brew' by way of, strangely enough, the psychedelic music of Jefferson Airplane, then the Grateful Dead, and thence to Carlos Santana, and if we were playing Six Degrees of Frank Sinatra that would be five.

When Zoe had hit the right level, she could find the rhythms in the chaos of 'Bitches Brew' that she couldn't hear when she was sober, and the dancing and twirling became almost dervish-like. Stretching her boundaries even further, Zoe found Miles Davis music from the 70s and 80s that suited her angry moods, her pensive moods, when she was in a rage, even one song that was perfect for rough sex, although she never dared experiment with that with Neil, only when she was alone. Those were the only releases she allowed herself, dancing and expressing her mood when she was drunk, and masturbation. She didn't always orgasm with Neil, a fact she attributed to the booze sometimes. She never had any trouble pleasuring herself, however.

Zoe had made no progress at all in figuring out her future, but she thought there was time for that. Right now she was perfecting the art of living alone, and she was finding it easier and easier to find that space within her that was cold and quiet and still.