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Author's note I have made small changes from GWtW to suit my purpose. It is a very small change, one that unless you are overly acquainted with the book will you see it, in fact as listed currently in the story it is not incorrect.

Chapter Two

The train pulled into the Jonesboro station. Scarlett stepped onto the small platform that was still open on all sides. She looked around waiting, hoping that Will and Suellen had received her telegram. The children should have arrived yesterday with Prissy after Scarlett's hasty departure to Melanie's death bed. She hadn't wanted the children there, not then, not watching Melanie die. Scarlett shivered as the exhaustion and grief of the past year seemed to descend onto her.

"Scarlett!" Beatrice Tarleton hollered as she rushed across the street. "Child," she crooned, "you look so pale. I'm so sorry for your loss."

Scarlett's normally flashing eyes were lifeless and without fire. "Thank you." She murmured politely.

""Why, Scarlett O'Hara! I never thought that anyone or anything could defeat you. I always thought you were the only Belle in Clayton County that could have tamed any of my boys. Why I was sure that the twins were eventually going to have to duel over you. And they probably would have too if it wasn't for the war." Her eyes grew wistful as she spoke of the past. "I remember that last Barbecue at Twelve Oaks before the way how you were so surrounded by beaux. I was so surprised when you agreed to marry Charlie Hamilton. I don't mean to speak ill of the dead. But he didn't have life like you in him. And by the twin's reactions, you were marrying the devil himself. I'm not so sure that you didn't, but of course I'm not referring to Charles."

Scarlett looked up at her startled by the confession. "Rhett?" She said with a ghost of a smile. "Well it doesn't matter now. He's left me too."

Beatrice gazed into Scarlett's eyes. "It's so hard to lose a child. I wouldn't even wish it on a Yankee unless it was one of the Yankees that took my boys from me. He's just too hurt to deal with anything else right now. You'll see Scarlett. You'll see."

Scarlett shook her head. "I don't see how, I don't see how he will ever forgive me. I've been so horrible."

Beatrice smiled a grim smile. "You never understand until it happens." She paused as if considering what else she should say. "Listen to me, I know you thought we were fools to buy those monuments for the boys. And maybe now you understand, at least a little. It was the only way to hold on to that part of me and to my boys. Did you know Scarlett; I never even got all of their bodies back. And maybe it was foolish to deprive ourselves to have those, but I didn't care, and I would still do it again."

"I think I do understand much better now. Then I was so scared of going without food that I could think of little else. I've been plagued by that fear ever sense. The Yankees can't scare me, but the thought of starvation scares. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because I dreamed I was back right after the fall of Atlanta, and we were so hungry. And then you had these beautiful stones that I knew must be expensive and all I could think of was the food that you could have gotten with the money instead."

"It's all right Scarlett. I just wanted you to know that I am here, and you are no fool, and I hope that you don't think that I am one either."

"I would never think that you are a fool." Scarlett counted.

Beatrice took one more glance at Scarlett and decided that their current conversation was not helping. "Don't worry about it. Let me take you home, honey. I've got some horses now and a carriage. I'm breeding thoroughbreds again. You have to see them." Scarlett looked and saw not the horses --magnificent animals that they were-- she saw that old sparkle, the life was creeping back into Beatrice Tarleton, who had lost all four of her bright and loving boys to the war. Beatrice too was a survivor.

Scarlett smiled, and they entered the carriage. And for a moment Scarlett could close her eyes and feel the years slip away. For just a moment she was on the road to Tara behind one of Beatrice Tarleton's fine animals, and for a moment she was still the Belle of the county and nothing could touch her.

Scarlett's eyes fluttered open as they pulled through the tunnel of pines leading to Tara. She remembered with agony waiting for the moonlight to reveal if her home still stood. And then she saw the white bricks of Tara covered in ivy. And she smiled. The first real smile, she had smiled in such a long time. She was at Tara. And Tara was in her blood. Nothing could defeat her here. Sparkle came back into her eyes as she gazed at the house that she loved with all of her being. She decided in that moment that it didn't matter what Will wanted, pride or no pride. She was going to make Tara like the Tara before the war had touched her. And color rose in her cheeks. She would not be defeated.

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