It's nearing 1am and I have to be up in about 4 hours, but I wanted to get this posted since you all have been so wonderful with your reviews - and because it's technically Monday which means new Hart of Dixie! It's a little heavy, but there is so much here that will come into play in later parts of the story.

Good news - I've got the next update about halfway done so you should see it in the next couple of days!

The song "Nobody Drinks Alone" by Keith Urban inspired this chapter. I tend to connect music to ideas and this song is pretty poignant when it comes to how it relates to this chapter.

THINGS I OWN: A love for Pinterest that just won't quit. THINGS I DON'T OWN: Hart of Dixie

"Addie!"

"What now, Dr. Hart?" the nurse asked, appearing in the doorway of Zoe's office. She was irritated though for once, it was at Brick Breeland and not Zoe Hart. The man had thrown a tantrum worthy of her youngest boy when one of his longtime patients, Belinda Dolittle, had asked to see Zoe if she was free. Which, of course, Zoe had been.

"I'm heading out," she said. "Brick is on call. Don't let him tell you otherwise. He's still ticked off at me over Mrs. Dolittle."

"Skipping out a little early, ain't you?" Addie asked, glancing at the clock on the wall.

"Just a half hour," Zoe said. "Judson is back from visiting his grandmother for her birthday and we have a date. Wade is working so I can use my hair dryer and my curling iron at the same time. I'm not missing out on that rare opportunity." Addie shook her head.

"Like I said, you watch yourself with that veterinarian," she said. "He wasn't exactly friendly when he dropped by here to say hi to you earlier."

"You weren't exactly friendly, jumping on him about not being around when Miss Whittaker took her cat to see him."

"He's the town vet. It's his responsibility to be around."

"And Miss Whittaker's cat is probably just fine. If anything, it suffers from constant affection, seeing as she only puts the thing down long enough to come in here with the fake plaque."

"Just be careful, Dr. Hart," Addie said, ignoring her sass. "I know you're all street smart and such, coming from New York and all, but us people around here can't be easily fooled."

"You also can't give a new person a chance," Zoe retorted.

"In case you haven't noticed, Dr. Hart, you saw four patients today and three yesterday. While that's a far cry from a full schedule, people are giving you a chance. Your efforts are starting to pay off. That vet of yours? Well, he ain't making an effort whatsoever."

"I'll see you tomorrow," Zoe said pointedly, gathering her things and heading for the door. "Bye, Rose!" she called over her shoulder.

"Bye, Zoe!" Rose, who had taken to holing up in the corner of Zoe's office to do her homework after school, called back. She looked at Addie. "I'm rootin' for Wade," she said matter-of-factly. Addie nodded.

"Me too, sugar, me too."

She looked hot. She didn't usually think such vain thoughts about herself –her hair was too flat, her lips too thin, something lead her to be disgruntled about her appearance – but tonight, she looked hot. In her black mini dress and four inch heels that cost her more than most people in Bluebell made in a week, she was ready. By leaving work early, she'd had the time to shower and blow out her hair, curl it to perfection. She had smoky eyes and glossy lips and dammit, she was going to have a good time with Judson. Even though he was 10 minutes late and counting.

Twenty minutes later, she heard his car roll to a stop in front of her house.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, greeting her on the porch with a quick kiss. "Got caught up in the office – someone's dog got into the Halloween candy."

"It happens," Zoe said, kissing him again. "I'm just glad to see you. Now, where are you taking me for dinner?" Judson circled her with her arms and held her close to him.

"I reserved us a table at Fancies," he answered.

"Fancies?" Zoe said, making a face. "We always eat there." Judson chuckled.

"Well, the fine dining establishments in this part of the world are sadly lacking," he reminded her. "We have to make do with what we have."

"Fine," Zoe relented. "Next time though? I pick the place."

"If you must," Judson agreed. His phone rang out, breaking the moment. He checked the caller ID. "I need to take this," he said. "Why don't you go inside and get your things? I'll just be a minute." Zoe nodded and turned to head back inside. Judson tapped the answer button but waited until he was several feet away from Zoe's to start talking.

"What?" he asked.

"We agreed on $20,000," came the voice he'd grown to dread.

"I got you $15,000," he answered. "I'm working on the rest of it."

"You think I'm playing with you?" The man on the other end of the phone was angry. "I want my money and I want it now."

"I'm working on it," Judson said again. "I'm doing the best I can do."

"It's not good enough. I'm giving you until Saturday." The line went dead, leaving Judson to curse. The screen door banged and Zoe walked out, her purse in her hand, a bright smile on her face. He put a smile on his own face and went to open the car door for her, admiring how her dress fit snuggly in all the right places.

She was furious. Furious hardly covered it, actually. She wanted to reach across to the driver's seat, rip Judson's phone out of his hand and throw it as far as she could, ideally into the path of an oncoming car to make sure it was good and taken care of. It had rang repeatedly throughout dinner and hadn't stopped when Zoe had suggested they take a walk along the lake. He had answered every single call, often stepping away from their dinner for several minutes at a time, leaving her to awkwardly poke her fork at her ravioli and ignore the whispering going on around her.

Judson had apologized profusely each time, using the dog who'd eaten too much Halloween candy as his excuse. The owner was anxious, he said, and kept calling with questions every time the dog did something they thought was unusual. Zoe wasn't entirely sure she bought it. How many bizarre things could a dog do in the span of three hours anyway? They pulled to a stop in front of Zoe's house and she wasted no time in exiting the vehicle.

"Stupid Prius," she muttered, remembering how George and Wade had made fun of his car. They were right. It was a stupid little car. A stupid little car for a stupid man.

"Zoe, wait," Judson called, catching up to her on the porch. "Look, I know tonight wasn't ideal…"

"Wasn't ideal?" Zoe cut him off, spinning around to face him. "I basically dined alone while you answered phone call after phone call. And as luck would have it, all of Bluebell was at Fancies to see it!"

"I'm a veterinarian, Zoe. This is my job. You're a doctor. I'm sure you can understand that. Are you telling me that if you'd gotten a call about a patient during dinner, you wouldn't have jumped up and took it? And remember, you ran out on me to help that cheerleader the other week. I don't see how me taking calls from a concerned pet owner is any different."

"It's different because you knew I was on call before we ever left the house!" Zoe told him. "I get the whole having patients thing, human, animal or otherwise, but you've been out of town for the last four days. I was looking forward to seeing you. Sorry for being disappointed." She made to go inside, eager to be out of her sky high heels and into leggings and a t-shirt. Judson stopped her, grabbing her by the arm.

"Zoe, stop," he said, pulling around so she was looking at him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am. Listen, if you'll agree, I'll see if I can't work out something with the vet in the next town over to cover my practice this weekend. We can spend the whole weekend together, doing whatever you want. We can even go out of town, if you'd like." Zoe considered his proposition.

"We can't go out of town," she told him. "As luck would have it, I'm on call starting Friday evening. Brick's on all this week – we trade off. But it's Bluebell. The worse that'll happen is that Lucy Carrington will go into labor or someone will sprain an ankle during the football game Friday night. But if you still want to spend the weekend together, I'm game."

Judson smiled and pulled her to him. "I do," he confirmed. "I'll come over after work on Friday. I'll bring dinner and we can – go from there." Zoe smiled.

"Why don't I come to your place?" she said, thinking of Wade and his tendency to play his guitar too loud, usually blowing the fuse in the process.

"My place is a wreck," he said. "Boxes everywhere, furniture all over the place. I haven't had a chance to put things away. I don't even know where my pots and pans are."

"My place it is," Zoe said. "But why don't we go to your place Saturday? I'll help you get organized."

"That's an option," Judson relented. He leaned in and kissed Zoe. "Sorry again about tonight," he said. "If it makes it any better, I was looking forward to seeing you too." He kissed her again. He was a good kisser and Zoe felt her anger ebbing away.

"Don't let it happen again," she said, only half joking. "At least not for a while."

"Deal," he said. He kissed her again, this time with a lot more passion. He pulled away, leaving Zoe breathless, causing him to smirk at his success. "Sleep tight, Zoe," he said.

"You too," Zoe told him. He stole one more kiss before getting in his car and pulling away.

Zoe let herself in, thinking. She liked Judson. She liked him a lot. He was funny and charming and he was most certainly easy on the eyes. He could make her go breathless with a kiss and when he wasn't running off with his phone, she enjoyed his company. He could relate to her, being a veterinarian. He understood all the years she'd spent studying and how much she wanted to be the best doctor she could.

As funny and attractive as he was, however, she wasn't sure if she was falling for him. She liked him, but she kept waiting for sparks, for something that made her heartbeat speed up and her temperature rise. So far, all she felt was lukewarm excitement when she knew she had a date and slightly weak knees when he'd really kiss her. It didn't help that she had both Addie and Wade's nagging voices in the back of her head, feeding her doubts about Judson. It was their voices that lead her to agree to keep seeing him, determined to give him a chance when no one else around Bluebell seemed apt to.

She washed away her makeup and brushed out her hair, the curls she'd spent so much time on falling limp halfway through dinner. She'd been waging war on her hair ever since she moved to Bluebell, first the humidity that went along with summer and now the dry fall air doing a number on her locks. She spritzed on some leave in conditioner and brushed once more before stripping off her dress and pulling on her leggings and an oversized t-shirt.

She crawled into bed, bringing her laptop with her. She checked her email and Facebook, responding to the single message she had from a friend back in New York before she wasted a half hour on Pinterest, re-pinning recipes she would likely never try given her failed cooking attempts. With a yawn, she shut her laptop down and turned off the light. It was pitch black tonight since Wade was still at work, the lights from his house not giving off a soft glow that lit up her bedroom like a nightlight. She had just drifted off to sleep when a loud crash made her sit straight up in bed.

"What the…?" she said. She heard it again, this time making out the grunting of what sounded like a human. She sat in the middle of her bed, frozen as she considered her options. The lights were still off at Wade's and a quick glance at the clock told her he was still at the Rammer Jammer and would be for a while. There was another crash, this one much closer. She sprang out of bed and retrieved her Taser from the depths of her purse. She hoped it still worked, having no need for it until now.

She edged towards her front door, listening hard. She was certain someone was outside. She heard their grunting and heavy breathing. She peeked around the curtains, Taser ready, but didn't see anything. She took a deep breath and opened the door, stepping onto the porch. Her lawn chairs and table were turned over in her yard, one of the chairs some 20 feet away from where it had been. Terrified, she tiptoed down the porch steps, completely alert and aware that this was how the girl died in so many of the scary movies she'd seen.

"Dag on son of a gun…" Zoe jumped, throwing her hand over her own mouth to stifle the scream that tried to escape, looking around wildly for whoever the voice belonged to. The sound of something heavy being moved reached her ears. She bravely, or perhaps stupidly, took a few steps further into the yard, wishing more than anything that Wade would come home or Lavon would, for some crazy reason, have a need to drive to the back of his property where his two tenants resided.

"Hello?" she called, chiding herself for making her presence known as soon as she'd done it. "Please don't kill me," she said to herself, looking around, wide-eyed and scared.

"Son of a bitch… Mary Ellen! Where are you, Mary Ellen?" More grunting, another crash of something heavy. This time, it sounded closer to Wade's. Curiosity got the better of her and she edged around the pond, sticking close to the trees for cover, her Taser held in front of her with a shaky hand. She could make out someone on Wade's porch, tripping over the assortment of fishing poles, tools and empty take out containers that littered it. "Mary Ellen! Come out wherever you are!" Zoe sighed in relief, recognizing the source of all the noise. She let her Taser fall to her side.

"Earl!" she called, walking into Wade's yard, any fear she had now gone. "What are you doing?" Earl tried to look at her, but he was so drunk he couldn't stand still, let alone focus on her. "Earl? It's Dr. Hart. I treated you after Wade ran over you with his boat trailer, do you remember?" Earl staggered, his eyes trying to focus on her. Zoe wondered how many of her he saw.

"Pretty lady," he said, raising a hand in acknowledgement.

"Close enough," Zoe relented.

"Have you seen Mary Ellen?" he asked. Zoe shook her head.

"Who's Mary Ellen?"

"She's gone!" Earl said, turning and staggering away several steps, tripping over a tackle box as he went. It was amazing, really, that he didn't fall but kept walking, albeit in a swaying line. "She's gone and I can't find her nowhere!" Zoe climbed the porch stairs, avoiding the mess Earl had made of Wade's already messy porch.

"Earl, Wade's not here," Zoe said. "He's at work." Earl seemed to ponder what she was saying. He stared at her again, swaying violently. She held up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.

"One, two… Six," Earl Answered. "Mary Ellen!" Zoe sighed, realizing it was the first of the month and if her memory of her political science classes in college served her correctly, the government check Lavon said Earl got every month would have come today which meant Earl was on his way into town. As a doctor, she couldn't let him leave. He was a danger to himself, not to mention the community.

"Come on, Earl," she said, walking up to him carefully. "Let's go inside."

"You're pretty," Earl told her as she took him by the arm. "Mary Ellen!" Zoe sighed.

"Come on," she said, guiding him towards the door. He nearly fell again, this time over his own two feet. Zoe stumbled as well, trying to steer Earl towards the door. She wasn't very big and despite his inebriated state, Earl was significantly stronger than her. She managed to get him inside and placed him in a chair. She took a deep breath, dropping her Taser on the coffee table while she decided what to do.

"Mary Ellen!" he called, looking around wildly. "Is she here?" he asked Zoe.

"You're at your son's house," she told him. She needed to call Wade, let him know what was going on, but her phone was on her nightstand, charging. She looked at Earl. "Earl, do you have a cell phone?" she asked, knowing Wade didn't have a landline. Neither of them did.

"I broke it," he said. "Mary Ellen wouldn't answer."

"Great," Zoe said trying to remain patient. "Okay. You stay right here. Don't move. I'm going to go across to my house, get my phone, and then I'll be right back, okay?" Earl didn't respond. She left the house and was halfway across the yard when Earl came stumbling back outside.

"Bye, pretty lady!" he called.

"Earl!" Zoe called, turning to head back to Wade's. "Where are you going?"

"To find Mary Ellen!" he called back. "Mary Ellen!"

"Okay, no phone," Zoe said. She hurried back to Earl. "Come on, back inside," she said. The journey back inside was no easier, Earl stumbling even more than before, creating an even bigger mess of Wade's porch as he tried to turn the other way to continue his journey to town. She managed to get him back in the chair and checked the time on Wade's microwave. It'd be at least two hours more hours before he came home. She had no choice but to stay and make sure he didn't leave until Wade got home. She watched him retrieve a flask from somewhere in the depths of his dirty overcoat. She had an idea.

"Hey Earl, let me refill that for you," she said, holding out her hand. Earl, thinking he was getting more whiskey, handed his flask over without protest. Zoe took it into Wade's kitchenette and poured what was left down the sink. She filled it with water, hoping Earl was drunk enough to not know the difference.

"Thanks, pretty lady," Earl said after taking a swig, confirming Zoe's suspicions.

"Drink up," she told him. "There's plenty where that came from." She needed to get him hydrated, get something in him besides liquor. He started humming a tune that sounded faintly like "Moon River," disappearing into a world that seemed to only exist inside his head. Zoe, with nothing else to do but wait, took to wandering around Wade's house.

She'd been inside a number of times, usually to berate him for one thing or another, but she'd never really looked around. It was messy, which didn't surprise her. A number of his shirts were discarded around the living room. Beer bottles sat on end tables and his small kitchen table. His guitars, one acoustic and one electric, were propped up against a wall, his amp nearby. She wandered into his bedroom, a room she'd never been in before.

The bed was unmade and more clothes littered the floor. The drawers of his dresser were open, clothes hanging out, a sign that he'd been rummaging through them. She spied an old flannel shirt hanging out of a middle drawer and retrieved it, pulling it on over her t-shirt, realizing that she was chilly. It smelled like Wade and she found herself pulling it tighter around her as she wandered back into the living room. Earl, it seemed, had passed out. She sat down on the sofa and tucked her kegs under her, thinking.

Her self-guided tour of Wade's house had made her realize even more that she knew little about Wade. There wasn't a single photo or personal effect that gave her any hint of who he was. He had a sister, a niece and nephew, and yet she would have never known that just by looking around his house. There wasn't a single photo or any kind of memento that gave him away. Wondering what else she didn't know about Wade, she drifted off to sleep.

Wade stifled a yawn as he pulled to a stop in front of his house. He had hung around the Rammer Jammer as long as he could, knowing it was the first of the month and it was time for his father's monthly performance. There had been no sign of Earl, however, and by 2am, he let himself believe that there may just be a month he didn't have to climb on top of the hardware store and sing his father down.

He got out of his car and glanced at Zoe's house, not surprised that the lights were off. She'd likely been asleep for a while, hopefully by herself, Judson tucked in his own bed. Between his tired state and thoughts of Zoe, he didn't see the overturned toolbox on his porch and stumbled over it. Cursing, he looked up and for the first time noticed his lights were on. He frowned, then noticed the state of his porch. He sighed. It looked like his dad had made it to his house instead of the hardware store.

"Alright, Dad, time to go," he said, entering his house.

"Wha…?" came Zoe's voice. His eyes had been trained on his father, passed out in an armchair, a flask resting on his stomach. He hadn't noticed Zoe, curled up on his couch, wearing one of his shirts. She brushed her hair out of her face, struggling to wake up.

"What are you doin' here?" he asked, though he thought he could put it together.

"I heard something when I was going to bed. Earl was stumbling around in the yard. He made a mess of your porch," she answered.

"I noticed," Wade said bitterly. His toes on his right foot were throbbing from tripping over the toolbox. He made to wake up his father.

"Don't," Zoe said. "Let him sleep it off." Wade looked like he was about to argue but thought better of it. Instead, he sat down next to Zoe and sighed heavily, from both exhaustion and irritation at his father.

"I'm sorry 'bout him," he told Zoe. "It's not your place to deal with him."

"I wasn't going to let him stumble off into the night after I found him on your porch," Zoe said. "I took his flask and poured it out, refilled it with water. He was too drunk to notice. It didn't take him long to pass out once I got him inside." Wade looked at her, trying to decide what to say.

"Thank you," he finally said. "For takin' care of him or whatever you did. Most people round here would've just let him go on his way. They don't pay him no mind, him bein' Crazy Earl and all." It hadn't escaped his attention that Zoe called him 'Earl.' Everyone else, even his sister, referred to the man as Crazy Earl. She didn't know what something so small meant to him.

"Well, I owed you one," she said with a small smile. Wade returned her smile, then noticed the Taser on his coffee table.

"Did you – you didn't – tase him did you?" he asked, a touch of amusement on the edges of his voice. Zoe shook her head.

"It was my only line of defense," she said. "It's the best I could do seeing as you weren't home and Lavon wasn't going to come driving along anytime soon." Wade laughed in spite of the situation. Zoe rested her head on the back of the sofa, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Wade leaned back as well, the pair looking at each other.

"You are so city," he said, a phrase he often used to describe her.

"Shut up," she said, smacking his shoulder lightly. He grinned, a chuckle escaping his lips. "Can I ask you something?" she asked. She looked timid. Wade nodded. "Where is your mom?" Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. He looked down, bit his bottom lip for a moment before raising his eyes to meet Zoe's curious ones. Even years later, he didn't like talking about his mother.

"Died," he said. "A long time ago. She had cancer." He didn't like to remember those last few weeks, the doctors and the nurses, the medicine and the machines. Zoe could tell the memory pained him. She reached out and put her hand over his where it rested on the back of the sofa.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean…"

"It's okay," Wade said, shaking his head. "I was in eighth grade. So like I said, it was a long time ago." The pair fell into silence for a while, the only sound filling the room the soft snores emitting from Earl. Zoe's hand still covered Wade's. Neither of them made to move.

"You know, it was your dad who found it," Wade said after a while. Zoe looked at him, waiting for him to go on. "She ignored the symptoms for a long time. She kept makin' excuses, said she was tired because she was workin' so hard, jugglin' her job and us. I was young, but I remember hearin' Dad tryin' to get her to go get checked out. She'd get sick a lot but she hid it from us, didn't want us worryin' I reckon. She finally went to see Harley but by the time she did, the cancer had spread all over. There won't nothin' anyone could do. She died 'bout six weeks after Harley diagnosed her."

"I can't imagine," Zoe said softly. She'd seen the effects of cancer first hand, being a doctor, but she she'd never lived it, never had to watch a loved one battle against it.

"I know you don't believe it, but you're more like Doc Wilkes then you know," Wade told her. Zoe shook her head.

"I'm nothing like him," she said. "People loved him. He was like, the town whisperer or something."

"He kept Crazy Earl off the roof more than once," Wade told her. "Tried time and time again to help him when Mere and I were still kids, get him to straighten' up, be a daddy to us, get out of the bottle. You did just what he would have done tonight." Zoe didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

"Why "Moon River?" she asked after another span of silence. "He started humming it, right before he fell asleep."

"It was Momma's favorite song. Believe it or not, she loved Willie Nelson's version. Most people think she had an obsession with Breakfast At Tiffany's but I don't think she ever even seen it. She just loved Willie."

"You play Willie Nelson sometimes," Zoe commented. She'd dated a guy once who had an obsession with outlaw country music and she knew more Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash than any born and bred New Yorker ever should.

"Yeah," Wade agreed. "Sometimes." Somewhere during their conversation, Zoe had slid closer to Wade. Only a sliver of space separated them now. An exceptional snore sounded from Earl and Wade made a face. "He wasn't always like that," he said. "He just loved Momma so much. When she died, he died too." Zoe found herself laying her head on Wade's shoulder. It was late and she was tired and right then, in that moment, it felt like the right thing to do. Instinctively, he put an arm around her. She didn't pull away.

"Was her name Mary Ellen?" she asked. Wade nodded.

"How'd you know?"

"He was looking for her," Zoe told him. "He kept calling out for her, asking me if I'd seen her."

"That's usually how it starts. He gets his check deposited on the first, goes to the liquor store, goes back home and starts drinking. By nightfall, he's so drunk he's separated from reality. He's usually out of money by the end of the month and he'll be sober for a few days. That's why Meredith came down for Halloween – so Jake and Mac could see their grandpa while he was sober."

"Meredith helped raise you, didn't she?" Zoe guessed. Wade nodded.

"She stepped in after Momma died. She's a couple years older than me. I mean, I was old enough to look after myself well enough, but she made sure I went to school, cooked dinner in the evenings, looked after Daddy. 'Course, she took off first chance she got, but I guess I can't blame her."

Wade could hardly believe he was telling Zoe all of this. He kept his cards close, didn't let people in. He blamed it on the late hour and Zoe's proximity, her perfume filling up his nostrils and fogging his already tired mind. She yawned, moving her hand to cover her mouth, her head never leaving his shoulder.

"Let's get you home," he said, moving half-heartedly with the intentions of walking her home. He would be fine with her staying right where she was. It just felt right, having her tucked in at his side.

"I'm comfortable," Zoe said, her eyes heavy. "Can I stay?" Wade nodded and put his arm back around her, pulling her closer to him again. She didn't protest, whether it was because she was so tired or something else, he didn't know. He wasn't going to argue either way. She drifted back to sleep quickly and he followed not far behind her.

Whew. That was heavy. But necessary. More fun Zoe/Wade moments are ahead in the next chapter, promise!

Thanks for reading and reviewing!