Zoe had been on a rampage that week. She was throwing herself into her work at the practice and anything else she could find to fill her time with such a ferocity that half the town was watching and waiting for her to crash into a breakdown.

Vivian was worried by the way her cousin was acting and had pulled her aside to ask if she was doing okay in the wake of her rather abrupt break up with Joel. Zoe had assured (extensively) her she was completely fine and that she was simply making productive use of the time she had previously wasted on crappy relationships. Love, she told Vivian, wasn't all it was cracked up to be and she was no longer buying into the lie the world sold everyone about needing a relationship to be happy. It was brilliant, she professed, being single and not having to work around anyone else.

Zoe had always hated group work, she pointed out, because the outcome was dependent on other people. She was a lone wolf, and she was much happier being in control of everything herself. She didn't know why it had taken her so long to realise how much unnecessary stress and wasted effort her relationships cost her. She was going to put all that energy into to doing things that actually mattered, goals that she could work towards that were solid, and stable and not affected by unreliable feelings.

Vivian didn't believe her cousin for a second – she was intimately familiar with the bitter grapes of wrath phase of coming out of a relationship, and for someone who claimed to have seen the light and be happy about being single, Zoe sounded not a whole lot happy, and an awful lot bitter. Especially when she went off on a spiel about how 'love' was just the result of hormones and she was no longer going to be a slave to the delusions caused by an overdose of oxytocin.

Zoe Hart was definitely not completely fine, and Vivian Wilkes certainly wasn't stupid.

She saw the way Wade had been looking at Zoe Hart; or rather studiously not looking, with occasional lapses in his self control during which his eyes flicked to Zoe. It was just a little flash of something in his eyes, but it spoke of deep emotion; concern, regret, affection. He was worried about Zoe; about the way she was pushing herself to do everything, and Vivian could tell that sometimes, he was fighting the urge to go to her, ask her if she was okay himself. Vivian wasn't afraid that he would cheat on her with Zoe. It didn't feel like that at all. But the way he looked at her… it did mean something.

Vivian had had a brief flash of doubt about Wade when she started dating him when she found out that he had dated Zoe, but then Zoe was with Joel and she'd seemed ok, and so had Wade. She'd dismissed that feeling that maybe she was stepping on her cousin's toes, because she just like Wade so much, and he clearly liked her. She'd started feeling more uneasy a few days ago when Wade's father, Earl, had accidentally referred to her as 'Zoe'. When Wade corrected him with a glare quick enough, and Earl had apologised to her and said it was just that she and Zoe looked alike, being cousins, and he sometimes got names confused. For some reason though that little slip had gotten to her, and she'd found herself thinking about it more and more often.

She was realising now that what had gone on between Zoe and Wade was maybe more than just dating, whether they admitted to it or not. Wade liked Vivian, and she liked him. A lot. He was a great guy, and he was kind and funny, and hot. But when she caught him giving Zoe that look she could see more than 'like'. She saw something more like love.

Vivian sat on this idea for a few days, watching Zoe turn herself into a human tornado of health promotion and volunteering and DIY home renovation, and Wade not looking at his ex but growing more tense and worried. Wade was just as sweet as ever, and maybe that's why it took her three days to decide instead of one, to turn to him and speak regretfully.

"Wade, I think we need to break up."

Vivian Wasn't going to be a poor man's Zoe Hart.