DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything you recognise. All that belongs to me is the plot and any original characters that pop up along the line.

Authors Note: Hi, this is my (miserable, I suspect) attempt at a GWTW fanfiction. I hope none of you mind me a few liberties- I will never be as good a writer as Margaret Mitchell, so I doubt I will be able to recreate the characters exactly, but I will do my best. I would also greatly appreciate feedback

CHAPTER ONE:

"Ashley, I am making you an offer." Scarlett was very frustrated with the man she had once believed she was in love with. Rhett had cheated her out of the sawmills, and Ashley was an incompetent businessman. Why did he let his pride get the better of his common sense every time? "An offer that anyone with a bit of gumption would realise is impossible to refuse. And yet you still say no."

"Well, I never had much gumption, Scarlett." Ashley shrugged, and she hated him in that moment. She wished she could seize him by the shoulders and shake him violently until he caught his senses.

"Ashley, I am offering you a thousand dollars in gold for the mills. I am also offering you the opportunity for Beau to have a decent education alongside Wade at a prestigious school. You will never have to work a day in your life again, and will be free to live on your terms, as you please. How can you possibly say no?"

"Scarlett, you know how difficult you are to refuse…" He began.

"Evidently not." She snapped.

"…However, I know I have been effectively useless since the war. The one thing I have to claim for my own is the running of these mills. If I was to allow myself to be brought out by any price, it would be doing everyone- my father, Melanie, and Beau- a huge disservice."

"And being useless at running the mills isn't doing them a disservice by making them ashamed?" The words slipped out before she could stop them, and for a moment, Scarlett's ears seemed to ring. Then she hastened to correct the damage she had done. "Oh, Ashley, I'm so sorry, I never meant for that to slip out!"

"Never mind, Scarlett," Ashley said, his voice emotionless, "It will not make a blind bit of difference to my answer."

Scarlett departed the mills with fury pulsing in her veins. All she wanted was her old life back- the life where she had something real to focus on, something to strive for. But she was being refused this left, right and centre by everybody; Atlanta for pointing accusing fingers at her, Melanie by dying when she most needed her, her husband for leaving her, and now Ashley had slammed the door shut in her face on the last thing she had left- work.

She still had the store, but the store basically ran itself. Hugh Elsing had become a competent salesman and they made continuing profit. And Tara, though still not on the scale of plantation it had been before, was also out of the clutches of the taxman for now, its residents out of the cruel grasp of poverty too.

She stomped down Peachtree Road, kicking at loose stones in the still-broken sidewalk, and raging at the world for being so unfair. Why did it have to steal away everything she held dear? Why?

Her conscience told her that perhaps she had thrown away what she held dear by her own hand, in refusing to admit to herself even in her heart of hearts that she did in fact hold these things dear. But she ignored her conscience- never something she had found terribly difficult to do- and continued down the road.

Eventually, she found herself at Five Points, before the store. She remembered how awful Frank had been at running it before her, and she was struck, not for the first time, with the thought that perhaps men were not all as smart as they were thought to be.

Memories seemed to be plaguing her today, and she flashed back to that horrible hot, sweaty day when Five Points had been covered with the bodies of dead and dying men, and Melly had been at Pittypat's, about to give birth and there had been no doctor and Prissy had lied about knowing how to birth babies… She had thought, that day, that life could not get any worse. She had stopped being afraid of God on that day, because nothing could frighten her more than the idea of the Yankees, and Melly dying on her watch, or Beau dying, or any other awful possibility that might have occurred.

Scarlett found herself surprised to find Five Points as ordinary as it was now, and was also astonished to find herself thinking that perhaps that day wasn't as bad as this one. The world now seemed to have righted itself almost completely, except for the things that Scarlett touched- they all were dust and ashes now. If only Rhett had stayed- then perhaps she would've been able to cope with the rest. But he had left, and with the revelation that he no longer cared a morsel for her or what she chose to do with herself. He did not love her anymore, he'd told her, and that was that. Sighing, Scarlett entered Kennedy's. Hugh smiled when he saw her.

"Scarlett, you will be very pleased with the deal that I just made. There is a gentleman in New Orleans furnishing a new mansion and he has ordered lots of furniture for it from the store! He said it is the best store he has seen in all of the South so he felt he ought to buy from us." Hugh babbled happily, and Scarlett felt a little proud of him. He had come so far under her close mentoring.

"That is wonderful, Hugh." She commended him, because men liked to be commended.

"And the Picard's are building a brand new house on Marietta Street. They need more bedrooms, I heard." Scarlett appreciated that he could not speak openly of Maybelle's new pregnancy, but she was not interested in gossip.

"I hope you sent them to Mr Wilkes for their lumber." She offered blankly.

"I did certainly recommend his mill to them." Hugh grinned, and Scarlett felt a flicker of annoyance at the mention of 'his mill'.

"Well, that is just… magnificent." Scarlett used the hyperbole for lack of any other ideas. "Hugh, since you have done so well today securing that deal with the New Orleans gentleman, I think you deserve the rest of the afternoon off. I'll close the shop for the day."

"Oh, really? Why thank you, Miss Scarlett." She watched him leave, and then settled in the back room of the store. It was dark there, which enabled her to think. She had not heard from Rhett, not seen him, in the whole year since he had left. But, she had heard that he had been seen in Charleston, bridges with his family appearing to have been mended. She wondered whether he would ever return, even on one of his 'time to time' visits, as he had said. But, Scarlett had long given up hope of seeing him again, let alone winning him back. It may cause her pain to think of it, but accepting this had enabled her to pick herself up, dust herself off, and attempt to continue with her life. This was what trying to buy back the sawmills was about; gaining some ground on which to stand, so that she could prove to the world, and to herself, that she didn't need Rhett to be happy.

So far, it was not working, but she repeated her mantra continually until it was almost religious. "Tomorrow is another day." And on one of those tomorrow's, she would be happy. She was determined of it.