Author's Note: so here is the second chapter. Hope you all enjoy it. Thank you for all of the reviews! There is more, but I will post it as it comes. I tried to write this from Scarlett's pov, but this was meant to be Rhett's chapter. He had something to say so I let him.
Alica
He was lying in bed, staring at the door that separated their rooms, when he heard her cry out. He could hear the terror in her voice, but he was powerless. He could not bridge the gap between them, and there seemed no point in even trying. The death of their child was too great a burden on his soul. Of course she hadn't cared. But that couldn't explain that fear and hurt that was so openly shared in her green eyes. But he needed to believe that she couldn't have cared. It was his child. She did not want his child, nor could she want to go through the pain of bearing another child. She had hated the way that none of her clothes fit any longer, or even though she had refused to admit it, she hated the way that everything wore her out. She hated being secluded in the house until after the baby came. Perhaps she hated that more than anything else. And yet the burden of the baby's death was on his head. Sleep was all too illusive, even more so than usual knowing that she was home and only a wall separating them.
As the day had wore on the dark circles under her eyes appeared more and more evident. She face grew pale and pinched. He could read the pain in her eyes, although he couldn't distinguish between the emotional and physical pain. And the moment when she had walked in the house, after she had delayed the inevitable by sitting on the porch for over an hour, he had watched her expression as she stared at the stairs. He detected the slight tremble in her hand, although she tried so to hide it. He watched her as she climbed the stairs alone. He couldn't help but be reminded of carrying her up those same stairs not very long before. And she looked so small, so impossibly thin, even thinner than she had been when she had visited him in the jail. He wanted more than anything to bridge the divide between them, but he couldn't seem to find a way, and his pride was so great that he could not say anything. He had been quite worried when she hadn't appeared for dinner, although the children were simply glad to be home and be with each other once again. Even in sleep she did not look peaceful, she looked tormented even as she slept. The fear in her eyes when he had awakened had nearly been his undoing and the way that she had tried to be strong staring down from the top of the stairs. Hell, who that had lived through what she had gone through wouldn't be terrified of them.
He could see it as she played with her food at the dinner table. This was not the Scarlett O'Hara that he knew. He had never before seen her pass on a meal, let alone when the meal was comprised of her very favorite foods. He knew that she never would have guessed that it was he himself planned it all. She thought that she was fooling everyone, and perhaps at Tara she had. She could be quite the actress when she wanted to be. But he knew her better than that. He knew that she was still much too thin, and she was in pain. He couldn't stand to watch her playing with her food, unable to eat. Perhaps it was his presence…. So he finally had left her alone, perhaps without anyone watching she might eat a little more.
But he knew that she hadn't. And when she appeared at the base of the stairs, her eyes haunted by the memories, he wanted to help her. He wanted to protect her from life, but she was so damned stubborn. She always had been, if she wasn't she would have let go of that fool Wilkes and learned to love him. But he had watched her as she climbed the stairs, winded by the fourth tread, trembling before the first landing. And he had felt a guilt burning in his chest like a blaze a thousand times hotter than the sun. Finally he had taken her in his arms, carrying her to her room because he couldn't bear to watch her in pain and not do anything any longer. He had had to leave her after she let go of him, because he found himself sitting on their bed holding her, and he was thinking of having her again, and he knew that she was too weak, and he would not do that to her. And she was still in there, still tempting him by her very presence. How could he go to her when he wanted her so badly?
And he stared at the door that led to her room, listening to her cry when Bonnie's small voice broke through his internal dialogue. "Daddy, Momma's crying. Momma's sad and scared."
Rhett took one look at the sleepy eyed darling beside him and rose from his bed. "All right, I'll go check on your momma."
"Scary dreams, daddy. They make me cry, too." Bonnie replied as she snuggled back into her pillow, with a doll that had been a gift from Scarlett nestled in the crook of her arm.
"Are you sure that you want me to leave you in here?" He questioned.
She gave him a look that was purely Scarlett, no one else had mastered that look of pure exasperation and annoyance at him. "Momma's crying. Momma needs daddy."
It amused him to see Bonnie, looking as a miniature of her mother. And with the exception of the color of their eyes, Bonnie was a smaller version of Scarlett. He couldn't tell her no. "All right. I am going to let your mother know that she is all right. I'll be back in a bit."
"Night, daddy." Bonnie smiled at him sleepily as he opened the door that adjoined to the master bedroom. He frowned as he entered the room, standing quietly near the door as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of Scarlett's room. She was sobbing still, occasionally murmuring something that he didn't quite understand. Once his eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness of the room, he crept closer and could finally make out what she was crying. "My baby, my baby. I want my baby." And yet despite the sobs and cries, he didn't think that she was awake yet. She was still dreaming, still lost in a terrified slumber.
The bed dipped with his added weight as he sat on the edge beside her, the satiny material sliding beneath him as he reached over and gently shook her. "Shhh… Scarlett. Wake up."
She cried out once again for her baby, before coming to attention, lying motionless and silent now in the heavy darkness of her massive bedroom. He knew that she knew that he was there, and it was as if she was frozen and unsure of what she should do, knowing that he had caught her crying out for her lost child. Or perhaps she didn't know, perhaps she didn't remember. She never was too emotionally astute when she was awake. Perhaps only in her dreams did she really know what was in her heart.
The silence between them was thick and heavy, as the only sound in the dimness was her breathing, which was slowly returning to normal after the exertion of the nightmare. Finally, she spoke, "I'm sorry that I disturbed you. You didn't have to come in." He could hear the tremors in her voice that belied the weakness and anguish that she tried to cover up.
"I don't mind." He replied evenly, his cool indifference masking any other emotions that threatened to rear their head. It was harder than normal, for even in the darkness he could see the frailness of her body. She wanted him to believe otherwise, but she was not whole in body or in spirit. Surely the loss of a child she hadn't wanted couldn't have done this to her. And yet a nagging voice in his head said that she was lying, wasn't it obvious from the way she had just been crying. She had wanted this child.
The inner battle continued even as she dismissed him, "You can go back to bed. You don't have stay here and watch me." And yet, she was still trembling. The thought that she had only wanted the baby because the child was not his echoed through his head, and yet his traitorous heart screamed all the louder that she would never have cheated on him. She would never have gone that far, even though she had been unfaithful in her heart, he couldn't imagine that she had truly been unfaithful with her body. He knew that she hadn't cheated with Ashley, despite his protests to the contrary. Even after three husbands she was still such a little prude. And Ashley was not man enough to be physically unfaithful to Melanie. Hell, if he really thought about it, Ashley was in a similar situation to him. They were both in sexless marriages, although not for the same reasons. That bastard Wilkes could not risk having relations with his wife, for the fear that a pregnancy would kill her. He might feel sorry for the man, if the man in question were not the reason that Scarlett had exiled him from their bed. No, he knew that the inglorious Ashley Wilkes was the cause for his ejection from his wife's bed, although he still had to wonder what exactly he had said to invite Scarlett to give up the comfort that he knew that she took from his presence. Before that time, even though she was shy about having sex, he knew that she enjoyed herself. They had been more than just husband and wife. They had been friends and confidants. Ashley had stolen much more than the sex from him, he had also taken that friendship. And that friendship meant so much more than anything else.
She was still trembling, as much as he wanted to flee, how could he leave her like this? How could anyone resist her when she was so weak and frightened and obviously in need of comfort. Even her words trying to send him away sounded hollow and empty. "I realize that I don't have to stay and watch you. But do you want me to sit with you for a little while until you go back to sleep?"
"You don't have to stay." She replied with the barest hint of sob still in her voice.
"You didn't answer my question. Would you like for me to stay?" He replied evenly. She looked so much like a little girl, like his little girl, crying in the night that he could not leave her here alone. So he didn't wait for her to respond. She was as stubborn as he was, possibly even more so. She wasn't lying, she was only choosing not to answer. He moved along the bed until his back was against the headboard and he took her hand and held it, making slow circles on her smooth skin. "Go to sleep."
"No!" she cried out, then quickly her hand went to her mouth, as if she had never meant for those words to escape.
"What is the matter, Scarlett? You are as terrified to go to sleep as you were the night Atlanta fell. I'm surprised that you haven't been on a greater crying jag then you were after Frank's death." He tried goading her to bring some fire back to her, but to no avail. There was silence between them until she whispered something so softly that he wouldn't make the words out.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." He told her gently.
Again she whispered, but he bent his head so that the dark veil of her hair was brushing his face so that he could hear her. "My baby. I want my baby."
"Bonnie is only in the other room. You can see her in the morning." He replied, sensing that Bonnie was not the baby she was referring to.
"No!" She sobbed. "You don't understand. You don't care. I want my little baby, but my baby is gone!" She was shaking with what he assumed was rage and grief. He knew that there was no point in answering, that nothing that he said would change the situation. He simply pulled her against his body in the darkness and held her as she cried brokenly. And he had to wonder if things had changed between them forever.