I'm so sorry for the delay with posting Lessons in Love, RL is giving me a bit of a kicking at the moment and it might be another week or two until the next chapter is up. To tide you over until then, and by way of an apology, this is a short one-shot I wrote as part of a ficlet challenge over on the group site. My aim was to see whether I could write a fic in which Rhett and Scarlett don't actually speak, but in which they finally learn to communicate with one another in response to noagnes's point that in the novel they are constantly talking to one another without really saying anything/truly hearing each other. It's not much, but it's all I have right now I'm afraid and I hope you enjoy it. I promise to get back to LiL as soon as possible. Thanks for reading.
...
The first time Rhett comes back to keep the gossip down he barely speaks. Naturally, he has plenty of tales to entertain the children with and a kind word for each of the servants, but to Scarlett, the wife who has loved and missed him so desperately over these last three months, there is only a curt greeting and precious little else.
She bears it as well as she is able, drinking him in from her seat in the corner, glancing his way when she thinks he isn't looking and smiling softly at the jokes only intended for Wade and Ella's ears.
She watches the candlelight flicker sensually across his once familiar form, sees it glide over a strong, knowing face and down a long, powerful body, golden hues banishing the shadows caused by age and an all too present grief.
She looks at him and aches in ways she never knew were possible, love coursing through her veins like liquid fire.
When he leaves a week later he doesn't say goodbye, creeping out of the house one night while Scarlett and the children lay sleeping, his footsteps as silent and hurtful as any thief's. It's Pork who finally plucks up the courage to tell her of his departure, but he needn't have troubled himself, the empty space on the coat rack already having spoken the words her so-called husband could not.
...
The second time he returns winter is finally relinquishing its hold, tentative green shoots emerging from gnarled branches and watery rays of spring sunshine warming the places that once lay forgotten and cold.
He looks younger, Scarlett thinks, closer to the old, dashing Rhett Butler who once set off to conquer the entire world armed with little more than a condescending smirk and a perfectly raised eyebrow. The same Rhett Butler who'd succeeded in making her years of enforced widowhood some of the freest she's ever known.
Scarlett wonders if he's happier now, if perhaps he's finally managed to find some of the inner peace which has so alluded him since that fateful summer morning when the sound of faltering hooves and heartbroken cries filled the stifling air.
She hopes he has, but she doesn't dare ask. If she does, he might return the question, and he has always been able to see through her lies.
...
By the time of Rhett's third visit, the crushing weight of his dogged silence is more than Scarlett can bear. On the second night of his stay she opens the liquor cabinet and doesn't close it again until the last few drops of brandy have run scorching down her throat.
She finds Rhett in his room, the air thick with cigar smoke and unspoken regrets. Swallowing nervously at the sight of exposed skin beneath an open shirt, she finally breaks down, confessing her love and begging for his forgiveness until he can fain disinterest no longer.
Pulling her roughly against his chest, he cradles her against his heart like he once did a beloved, blue-eyed child, and ushers her carefully onto the bed, whispered words and closed-lipped kisses falling upon her cheeks like cool rain upon parched desert sands.
His eyes are impossibly dark as they bore down upon her, not a single chink of light escaping the cloying gloom. They bring to mind the precise exhausted, hopeless shade of black that ashes assume after a great fire has turned in on itself, destroying the very thing that once made it burn so bright.
Nevertheless, she leans into his embrace like she's starving for it, her entire being craving the warmth that only he has the power to bestow. She longs so desperately to believe that this is the beginning of something beautiful, and curses herself for hearing the unspoken goodbye behind his every touch and gesture.
That he stays until she falls asleep provides only slim comfort, for now she realizes he's been gone for years in every way that truly matters.
...
The fourth time Rhett comes back it's for Wade's wedding.
It's a beautiful day, the blossom hanging proud and heavy from trees whose leaves shimmer prettily in the mid-morning sunshine. Filled anew with the giddy, panting joy of young love, the red earth beneath their feet feels reborn, the ghosts of the proud, Southern men who once laughed so loud and died so young now buried deep.
As they climb the hill to Tara, Scarlett smiles to herself and thinks that nothing in the world has ever been more beautiful than the North Georgia countryside on April 16th.
They eat outside on the lawn, great big plates piled high with so much food that they make hazy memories of war-time starvation feel like nothing more than an unpleasant dream.
Later, furniture is moved carefully aside to make room for dancing, the sun just beginning to set as the band strikes up a tune as old and fleeting as time itself. Wade and his bride take centre stage, his eyes alight with a newly-married bliss that Scarlett will never know. She watches them from the window seat and prays that life will prove kinder to her son than it ever has to her.
Unconsciously, her feet tap along to the music of her youth and from across the room a stranger flashes her a nostalgic, bittersweet smirk. He has been watching her all day, yet hasn't once come near. Tiring of the space between them, she throws a saucy smile in Ashley's direction, biting her tongue when her real target arches an eyebrow and moves closer.
Ashley has barely taken a step before she feels Rhett beside her, a heart that should know better thumping loudly in her chest.
Taking her arm, he leads her away from the light and noise of the party and out into the refreshing coolness of the evening air.
Sitting down side by side on the porch swing, Scarlett shivers and uses the sudden breeze as an excuse to draw closer to Rhett. The movement causes her hip to brush against his and a moment passes, strained and heavy, before a decade's worth of tension suddenly snaps and he moves to wrap her up tightly in his arms, the heat and smell of him engulfing her as she buries her head gratefully into the comforting warmth of his neck.
Pressing dry lips to salty skin, she pours her heart into her kisses, seven years of silence and a lifetime of miscommunication effortlessly undone in the time it takes for her to sigh her need into the soft, secretive space that lies behind his ear.
Rhett does not speak, but she knows he understands her just the same. It's there in the way he pulls her closer, in the tender caress of callused fingers along the small of her back and in the steady increase of his heartbeat underneath her palm. Seconds later when she feels him plant the softest of kisses amongst her tumbling curls, she hears his reply as clearly as if he'd leaned back and shouted it into the fiery orange skies above their heads.
Silent, but together, they watch the sun go down.
...
The fifth time Rhett comes back, it's been mere days since his last visit. Indeed, Wade has yet to return from his honeymoon when Scarlett descends the stairs one morning to find her sometime husband waiting for her in the hallway, leaning against the bottom of the banister and gazing up at her with a knowing, only slightly apologetic, smirk upon his face.
Rolling her eyes, she curses him inwardly even as her feet fly down the steps to reach him, a thousand greetings, angry reprimands and hopelessly sentimental declarations chasing themselves across her tongue in a bid to have the first word.
In the end though there is simply no time, as she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him with all the passion and joy that she can muster, reveling in the shocked grunt and amused chuckle she draws forth from all-too eager lips.
When he swoops down and lifts her bodily into his arms, Scarlett smiles against his open mouth and reasons that sometimes actions really do speak louder, and a damn sight more honestly, than words ever could.
...
The sixth time Rhett returns, all remaining hopes of keeping the gossip down are lost for good.
After all, Atlanta's pack of very old cats would be as nothing without the latest Butler scandal to sustain their wagging tongues, and soon the town is abuzz with talk of the most historic reunification since North reclaimed South.
Neither Scarlett nor Rhett will be drawn upon the subject though, smiling cryptically whenever questioned and preferring to let the permanent sparkle in her eyes and reignited flame in his speak for themselves.
Well, that and the small matter of Scarlett's ever-thickening waistline of course.
The End