a/n: I just binge watched the whole series in a week and now have so many feels it has me plotting out a one-shot collection of what ifs, AUs and imaginings for the future we never got to see. Please leave me a review with your thoughts.

WHAT IF #1: What if George was offered a job after 2X01?

Three Years can be a Lifetime

This wasn't his first stop, though he wasn't sure dropping his bags off at the B&B counted, but it was the one place he needed to go. It probably should have been Lemon, he should have gone to see her first, but he didn't know how to face Lemon, didn't know if he could face her, knowing that she would undoubtedly be with someone new, living the life he'd once promised to live with her.

Visiting Zoe was just easier. If you counted dropping in unexpectedly on the woman you'd broken off a fifteen-year-long relationship for and hadn't seen in three years as easier. Because George wasn't really sure he did. But her words had resonated with him, the whole conversation they'd had shortly before he'd been offered the job and a chance to return to New York had stuck with him. He'd thought about them a lot over the years, about how true they were, about how little he knew about the man he was without Lemon Breeland and after three years and another job away from home (in which, yes, he'd sown some wild oats) he thought he finally understood who the real George Tucker was and he wanted Zoe Hart to be the first resident of Bluebell to meet him.

He didn't have expectations, it had been three years and, honestly, he wasn't sure what to expect of his own feelings when he saw her. In fact, he'd spent the whole drive from the B&B wondering what it would be like to see Zoe again. He expected attraction, he expected old feelings and questions about what could have been.

He was not expecting Wade Kinsella.

He was not expecting Wade Kinsella standing in the door of Zoe's carriage house, covered in spatters of paint, shirtless and smiling his charming no-lady-could-resist grin at a woman in a delivery uniform as he exchanged a package of who knew what for a bag of something.

George thought the renovations on the carriage house would have been done long before now but then again, Wade could just have been patching something up. He waited patiently by his car while Wade finished his conversation and only once the woman had gone and Wade had turned back into the house and closed the door, did George mount the steps and cross the porch to knock on the door.

A moment later Wade answered the door, smirk in place looking as though he was expecting the return of the delivery woman. His smirk became a bemused smile when he caught sight of George.

'Well looky here, George Tucker, back in Bluebell.' Wade clapped a hand on George's shoulder in a friendly manner and stepped out onto the porch. 'New York finally get sick of you?'

George smiled. 'It was time to come home,' he answered. The simple exchange served to remind George how much he'd missed home, how much he'd missed Wade and everyone else he'd known his whole life growing up in small town Alabama.

'You back for good?'

'Seems that way,' George confirmed. 'Listen, Zoe around?'

For a moment, George thought he saw the smile freeze on Wade's face before the smirk returned. 'Back in town five minutes and already looking for the doc?'

'Is she here?' George asked again. 'She does still live here?'

'Yeah,' Wade said after a beat. 'She's here.' Wade turned around and pushed the door to the carriage house open, calling inside, 'Hey, Doc, you got a visitor.'

From inside, George heard something that could have been a response, but it seemed to be muffled by several walls and possibly a door or two. He looked to Wade who rolled his eyes and motioned George inside. Struck by a sudden bout of nerves, George took slow steps inside, noting the paint cans and tools lining the hallway and the drop cloth draped over the stair railing. The door to Zoe's was open and Wade led him through it, heart not-quite leaping into his throat.

As he came through the door he got a look at Zoe before she could see him. She was sitting on the floor, laptop in front of her, what looked like flashcards spread around her. She looked as beautiful as ever, though perhaps a little happier and more open than he remembered. She was dressed more casually than he'd ever seen her too, leggings and an oversized shirt, obviously she hadn't expected anyone to be stopping by and had settled in for an evening at home.

She looked up at Wade when he came in and held her hands up expectantly.

George watched as Wade took her hands and lifted her to her feet, remarking with something that sounded like exasperation, 'How do you get up when I'm not around?'

'I call Levon,' Zoe told him with a smile before she looked over his shoulder to see who he'd brought with him. 'Holy crap. George?!'

Zoe stepped closer, coming to stand beside Wade as he turned to face George and George got his first proper look at her as she stood before him, smile on her face. She stood almost a foot shorter than Wade, which took George a little by surprise because he never thought he'd see her without her towering heels. She looked good, she always looked good.

'Hey, Zoe.'

'When did you get back? Are you back? Does Lemon know you're here? Does Brick? Because you know, he's still mad at you, right?'

He took a moment to let the sound of her voice and all of her questions wash over him before he laid out any answers. 'Today, yes, no, no and I suspected he'd be mad.'

There was another moment while Zoe (and Wade) made sense of his answers and then an awkward silence while Zoe looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain why he was there and it occurred to George that three years was a really long time and he didn't have any idea what he'd been expecting or even hoping for when he'd come to see her but this strange distance hadn't been what he was expecting.

'Yeah, this has been fun,' Wade broke the silence with a wry smile. 'Tucker, good to see you man, stop by the Rammer Jammer for a drink some time.'

With a quick touch of a hand to the small of Zoe's back Wade was gone, disappearing up the stairs, into the carriage house's attic, apparently to finish whatever he'd been doing before he'd been interrupted. Zoe watched him go with an expression on her face George didn't know what to make of before she swung her attention back to him and smiled.

'How have you been? How was New York? Did you bring me bagels?'

'No bagels.' George shook his head. 'New York was good but I kind of missed Bluebell.'

'I know!' Zoe agreed. 'This is not the place I imagined spending the rest of my life but now I can't imagine leaving.'

'I'm kind of surprised you're still here, actually,' George admitted. 'When Dash told me you were still in town, I couldn't believe it. I thought you'd have been drawn away by a surgical position at some big hospital.'

'Turns out, I like being a GP. Who knew?' She was smiling again, that big smile and George felt all those feelings he'd come to associate with Zoe rushing back.

Just when he was about to do something about the feeling, maybe ask her for coffee or dinner, the door of the carriage house opened and about the last person George ever expected to set foot in Zoe's home walked through the door with an arm full of curtains and followed by AnnaBeth Nass and a woman George only vaguely recognised who was carrying a picnic basket.

AnnaBeth drew up short at the sight of him but Earl walked right inside, depositing the curtains on the couch and planting a sweet kiss on Zoe's cheek. George didn't know what surprised him more, the kiss or the fact that Earl was very clearly sober and looked to have been that way for a while.

'You know, you really do need a table in here,' the woman mused, setting the picnic basket on a side table.

'What are you doing here?' AnnaBeth asked, overriding any response Zoe might have made to the admonishment about her lack of a proper table. 'Does Lemon know you're back?'

'She doesn't, no,' George admitted.

'You came to see Zoe first?' AnnaBeth asked and George felt she was justified in her outrage.

'I should go.'

He expected Zoe to protest, to offer him the chance to join them but she didn't, she just smiled again, welcomed him home and said she might see him in town tomorrow. Feeling even more uncomfortable than he had when he first entered her home, George left. He glanced back over his shoulder when he reached the door, but no one was watching him leave, AnnaBeth was purposefully engaged in conversation with the woman and Zoe was talking to Earl who was showing her the curtains he'd walked in with.

As he drove back to the B&B, George had the uncomfortable feeling that he didn't belong. And it was a feeling that just kept growing as the evening wore on and turned into the next morning. The news that he was back in town spread fast, Dash made sure of that with a blog post detailing his arrival in the late afternoon, how he'd asked after the town and then disappeared off "to see their very own Zoe Hart". George hadn't listened to more than that, he'd been almost hurt to learn that in this equation he was the outsider while Zoe was the local favourite.

He wasn't surprised when he was ambushed in the Butterstick Bakery getting breakfast the next day. He wasn't surprised when he got stopped and berated by the gazebo or when he finally bumped into Lemon outside the Rammer Jammer. She been perfectly polite to him, though rightfully cold in her own way, informing him that his leaving her was the best thing that ever happened and that she was engaged to a perfect gentleman who treated her right and would never do something as terrible as leave her.

Dazed from his conversation with Lemon, he wandered into the Rammer Jammer feeling off balance and swimming in guilt he hadn't really had the chance to feel. The sight of Wade leaning on the bar, talking to Zoe as he picked at some of her fries didn't help the feeling. The expression on Wade's face was one George had never seen before and it brought him up short. Which gave Wade and Zoe a few more uninterrupted moments they wouldn't have had if he'd kept walking.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because Wade laughed at something Zoe said, which had her giving him an indignant look that had Wade leaning forward to capture her lips in a kiss. There was something so intimate about the whole exchange that astounded George and he found his feet guiding him toward them before his brain had really engaged, coming to a stop just behind and to Zoe's left as Wade broke the kiss, reached out and placed a hand over Zoe's stomach.

Which flattened her shirt against the swell of her belly showing off at least six months of growing baby.

'You and Wade, huh?' came out of his mouth in a strangled squeak. 'When did that happen?' he asked before they could do more than glance over at him.

'The night of your non-wedding to Lemon,' Zoe replied.

'The…? Seriously?' he demanded. 'So that whole speech about sowing my oats and learning about the real George was, what, just a brush off?'

'No,' Zoe answered evenly, 'I meant it. I just didn't know when I said it how much but I meant it.'

For one excruciatingly long moment, George felt himself swelling with anger but then, before he could say anything, before he could be hurt or angry, he remembered what he'd been through in the last three years, the people he'd met and dated, the things he'd gotten to see and do, and he deflated. What came out of his mouth instead was an incredulous, 'You and Wade for three years? Wade? In a relationship. For three years. Seriously?'

He expected some sort of agreement, some sort of indignation from Wade and an explanation from Zoe but instead, Zoe's eyes widened, and her mouth fell open, uttering an, 'Oh,' that seemed to be so full of meaning it had her gobsmacked. She spun to face Wade again, as though she'd clearly just realised something important, grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him into a kiss that he returned without question. 'I'm going to marry you.'

'What?' George yelped but his question was drowned out by a very pregnant Wanda who happened to be passing (waddling by) with a tray of drinks because she said, in a very loud and excited voice, 'It's about time!'

'Well alright,' Wade grinned happily, and to George's astonishment, pulled a ring out of his pocket and slipped it onto Zoe's finger.

'You had that in your pocket this whole time?' Zoe's eyes filled with tears and Wade smirked.

'Lemon had a plan.'

'Lemon?' George repeated drawing their attention back to him. He didn't feel like he'd come home anymore, more like he'd stepped into an alternate reality.

'A lot has changed in three years, Tucker.'

'Yeah,' George agreed, watching Wade steal another kiss before he drifted off to take some orders. 'Yeah, I'm getting that.'