Everyone, welcome back to day 25 of the Hart of Dixie countdown to Christmas! Merry Christmas, guys. I hope you've all had a good day! There is one more chapter to finish this one off.

This chapter is the one shot Under the Tree from a previous year. There has been some more added to it and things changed a little to fit in better with the story.

Enjoy!

He tossed his bag on the bed in the room and turned right back around to head back to the lobby, wanting to know where the closest bar happened to be. Wade counted his blessings seeing the open bar in the lobby. He grabbed a beer and headed to the couch he passed by for his beer. A faint smile crosses his lips remembering the first time he was here at this resort.

From time to time he'd think back to Zoe and wonder where she happened to be. If things with her dad ever worked out, because before the night had ended she told him the reason for her tears. He didn't make fun of her, just helped her cheer up after her mood turned depressing. At the end of the night when it was time to head back to their rooms, they made plans for the following day. The morning he thought he was losing her, he couldn't resist the temptation any longer. Her lips were as soft as they had looked. That one kiss they shared was the best damn kiss of his life. 16-year-old him, didn't know a damn thing about being in love, at 28, he thinks he knows more, and he wants to believe that he fell for Zoe during the few days they spent together. He's never felt anything like that again. The feeling of being whole, of being home.

He almost made the biggest mistake of his life. Drinking on a boat with a pretty woman and somehow he thought it would be a wonderful idea to marry her. Thankfully, he came to his senses before the I do's. That's how he found himself back at the resort a few months later, for Christmas once again. It would take a Christmas miracle for him to see Zoe here. After they left, his family made plans to come back, but it just never happened for them. Wade would often wonder if Zoe returned looking for him. If she thought about him. The chance of seeing her again are slim to none, and he should probably stop comparing how he feels when he's with other women to how she made him feel at 16.

"Come here often?" A voice to his right said, making him choke on his mouthful of beer. "Sorry," she laughed, taking a seat next to him.

"It's good," he nodded, turning to his right. The brown eyes, that pierced straight through him. The brown hair that frames her face, it's easy to know who the voice belongs to. "It's been a few years, Doc," he says, leaning back, tossing his arm on the back of the couch, behind his old friend. He does wonder if she's made it as a doctor as she talked about.

"12 years," she nods. When she walked into the lobby of the resort, she didn't look around and went straight to the open bar for a glass of wine. With her wine in hand, she looked around the lobby, surprised to see Wade sitting on the couch, in the same spot where she first met him. "What brings you here?" She asked, she noticed that he didn't wear a ring and when she spotted him, he sat with his head down, the beer bottle dangling from his right hand.

"I can ask you the same question," he retorted. "Come here often?" He asked with a smirk, repeating her words.

"I hope that line doesn't work for you," she laughed. "But no, I haven't actually been back since we were 16," she informed him with a sigh. After she went home to New York, they didn't even attempt to make any more family vacations. It was best, after all, her mom was focused on work, her dad was more concerned about his work and not his fake little family, and Zoe turned her focus to her school work.

"It worked for you," he smirked, sending her a wink. "Same here," he nodded. "Wanna talk about it?" He asked, finishing off the last of his beer.

"It would be nice to get a difference of opinion," she said with a sigh.

"Let me get us some refills, and I'll be all yours," he told her, sending a wink her way to lighten the dark mood things took, taking her empty wine glass.

Zoe leaned back on the couch, cheeks warm, tossing her right leg over her left leg as she watched Wade walk across the lobby to the bar. Her eyes followed along his backside. After all those years of being curious as to what happened to the boy that stole a piece of her heart, here he is in the last place she expected to see him. Zoe chalked it up to a one-time thing. Never expected to see him again. It's funny how 12 years later she ran into him, in the same resort in Denver.

"I wasn't sure what wine you had, so I just got the only white wine they have," he told her, handing her the wine glass.

"That'd be the one," she nodded, taking the glass from him. Their fingers touched, and she swears she felt sparks at the small touch. "What brings you back here?" She asked, taking a sip of her wine.

"I did ask first," he reminded her. "But I needed to get away and clear my head. I just happened to end up here," he shrugged. This resort wasn't the first nor the second place on his mind when he drove away from Bluebell. By luck when he got here they had a room available. It was a single but that's all he needed.

"I get that," she nodded, chewing her lip, watching the liquid swirl in her glass. "I needed to get away and clear my head and this place holds treasured moments, and it seemed right," she told him, turning to look at him. "I was offered a job; a full-time job at a practice minutes after I graduated from med school, I turned it down because it wasn't the job I wanted. My whole life has been planned out since I was 9 and knew I wanted to be a doctor," she tells him, taking a long sip of the wine.

"I don't know much about becoming a doctor, but what is it you want, Doc?" He asked her. "A full-time job is wonderful if that is what you want. But if not, you can't be beating yourself up because you're going after what you want," he shared.

"That's my problem. I was so sure when I turned him down, but I keep getting postcards about the ongoings of what's happening at the practice, and it makes me rethink I might want that instead," she sighed, sipping at her glass of wine. "I think that man is my father," she shared, biting her bottom lip.

"You don't want to get your hopes up if it's not your father?" Wade asked, taking a blind guess at the reason behind the reluctancy to take the job she wants. Zoe nodded, downing the wine in her glass. "Then what you need is a distraction from your problems," he smirked, grazing her bare leg with his knuckles. They can deal with their problems later, right now, he wanted to be with Zoe in every way that could.

"I think it's a bit crowded down here in the lobby," she seductively told him, biting the corner of her lip. "My room has privacy," she suggested, standing up, and leaving the empty wine glass on the coffee table.

Wade slipped his arm around her shoulders, when he was on his feet, his empty beer bottle sitting next to hers on the coffee table. He doesn't know if he loves Zoe, it's far more than any other feeling he's felt. More than any infatuation he's had before. Whatever he feels towards Zoe, it's what he's been looking for. This year he's got exactly what he wants. Zoe's with him and right now she's all he needs.

As they lay curled up under the covers, Zoe wearing his shirt, drawing random patterns on his chest, and snow falling outside the window, they can hear carolers singing around the resort. Wade was ready to spend this Christmas alone, he wanted to be by himself, and figure things out for himself. Yet, he couldn't be any happier to have Zoe in his arms giving him the most beautiful sight he's ever seen.

After their first night together, Wade checked out of his room and bunked with Zoe. They hadn't talked about feelings, and now that their bags are packed and by the door, this goodbye, feels a little more final than the one they had when they were 16. He doesn't believe in fate, or that they were meant to run into each other in this place one final time.

"Wishing you would have taken to the slopes this time?" Zoe asked, walking up behind him, her arms circling around his waist. "Maybe taking that risk on the ice rink?"

"Hmm, it was a hard choice to make, except the ice skating," Wade hummed, turning around in Zoe's arms, the sights of the window at his back, pulling Zoe into his body. "Slopes are really calling my name," he smirks, pressing his lips into the sensitive flesh of her neck.

"Is that so?" She moaned lightly.

"Oh yeah, but I rather enjoyed the way you called my name all night," he whispered in her ear, using his teeth to tug on her ear lobe.

"Wade," she gritted out, moving from his embrace. "We don't have time for this," she warned him. "A quickie will not just be a quickie," she stated the obvious.

"What is it you're not telling me?" He questioned, letting her go. It may have been 12 years since the last time he's seen her, though all of her tells are quite the same. He's never been able to easily read anyone like the way he can Zoe Hart. There was something more that she wasn't telling him.

"It's been 12 freaking years and you can still read me like we've known each other our whole lives, incredible," she laughed, sitting on the bed. "There is something more that I'm not saying, and before I say what that is, I want to know what's going on with us," she informed him, her nervousness bubbling in the pit of her stomach.

"I don't know what you want to hear, Zoe," he sighed, running a hand through his hair, and taking a seat on the arm of the chair in the room, making sure to face her. "Would I like there to be something more between us than what we shared over the past few days?" He asked, with a simple scoff. "Of course, I would, but is that even plausible?" He asked, moving to the bed. "What does a relationship between us even look like?" He questioned. "You don't know where you're going to be, so how can we have anything more?"

Nodding, she moved closer to him, reaching for his hands. He brought up valid points. The very points that she has a few answers to. "It would look like any normal relationship, one filled with dates, staying the night at the other's house, running into each other around town," she told him, getting a very confusing question-filled look from Wade. "I heard Bluebell isn't a very large town," she commented, with a soft smile on her lips.

"No, it's not," Wade smirked, the joy he found moments ago, fading away. "I don't want you to risk your career over me," he told her. "Whatever you decide, I don't want you to put me in that equation," he shared, lacing his fingers with hers. "I want to be with you, I really do, but I don't want to be the reason you regret anything you decide on," he told her honestly.

"Doctor Harley Wilkes," Zoe said with a slight hitch. "I never did get the answers I wanted when we left here 12 years ago. My mom wouldn't give me the name, feigning that she forgot the guy's name," she scoffed, shaking her head. "It wasn't until I received a few postcards from him that it connected. Why else would he show up at my graduation, why would he offer me a job without knowing what I am capable of? Why does he keep sending me these postcards? Simply it comes down to him being my father and reaching out to me," she explained, licking her lips.

"Did you ask her about it?" Wade asked, trying to keep his hopes at an even level.

"I didn't want her to lie to me again," Zoe sighed. "I wanted to go straight to the source, but there was just this feeling pulling me here," she lamely explained.

"And if he isn't your father, then what?" Wade voiced the one worry he held if none of it turned out the way she thinks it might.

"Then I don't know what I am going to do," she shrugged. "What I do know is that I couldn't do what I wanted when I was 16 and that was make this thing with us work because of our circumstances, now I can do something about that," she told him. "I didn't factor us into my choices, simply because I didn't know what lay ahead for us. You could have been married," she chuckled lightly.

"I almost was," Wade nodded. "Turns out my bad choices lately in my life lead me here to you," he shared, knowing just how horribly cheesy that sounded. "All I know is that we can take things one day at a time, and see where this goes," he commented, hoping that it would work for Zoe. He doesn't want to part ways with Zoe and be stuck recovering from a second broken heart from her. He may not know what love was like when was 16 and 12 years later, he's not so sure he knows what it looks like now. What he does know, is that when he is with Zoe, he feels complete, he feels like he's home.

"Uh, what?" Zoe asked, looking at him. "I'm not the other woman here, am I?" She asked, outraged at herself for not finding out sooner that he was with someone.

"Deep breath, Doc," Wade told her giving her a soothing smile. "I'm not seeing anyone, nor was I with anyone. It was a drunken night, that led to what would have been the biggest mistake of my life. I barely knew her. There haven't been any serious relationships on my part," he said, getting her to relax instantly. "You're not with anyone are you?" He asked, knowing that it can't be possible with the way she was talking about uprooting her life to Bluebell for him, technical for her dad.

"My last boyfriend broke up with me because we put more effort into work than each other and he went out and found someone to give him all the attention he wanted," Zoe venomously spit out. "It wasn't even serious per his request," she huffed, rolling her eyes at the way her ex acted. "I want a chance to be with you, in a way we didn't get. I'm not stupid enough to leave here without you," she shared.

"Can't say I'm that stupid either," he teased. "I really thought this was going to be the last hoorah for us," he admitted.

"That's what happens when you don't have all of the information," she teased. "Now we can stay a few more nights and hit the slopes and see if we still have what it takes, or we can head back to reality. What do you say?" She asked, a hopeful look on her face, that he decides he wants to spend a few more days locked away with her.

"I just told you I'm not that stupid, doc," he laughed, pulling her into his lap. "I could do with a few more days of just us," he smirked, his lips skimming over hers. He has no pressing matters to deal with back home. Everything and everyone can manage without him. Time away with Zoe is exactly what he wanted, even when he didn't know it. With Zoe, his life tilted back on its axis. Righted itself.