A/N - Hi all! Here's the next installment. One note: there *will* be one more chapter after this one; it's not the end. Thanks for reading!


She was swiftly out into the hall. She called Rhett's name, forcing herself to keep her voice low as she did so—ever mindful of the bedroom door always kept open while Bonnie slept—though she could have bellowed at the top of her lungs, and with great pleasure too, so deep was her rage.

He stood on the landing, about to embark down the stairs, but upon hearing her, he stopped and turned. For a moment his face was a smooth quizzical blank. Then, taking in her slanting green eyes and jutting chin as she approached him, his mouth curled down disagreeably at the corners. Had Scarlett been any less furious, perhaps she would have noticed this change in his demeanor and adopted a more coherent plan for battle. But she did not notice and instead moved recklessly, bluntly, into open warfare.

"Rhett, this foolishness about this necklace needs to stop!" she whispered furiously. "You know very well that I told Bonnie she couldn't take that necklace out of the house—and now you want to let her wear it to a political meeting? Mother of God, she's so careless you know she'll wreck it!"

"I know no such thing," replied Rhett, his eyebrows up, but his voice level. He surveyed her for a moment, as if deciding whether it was worth his effort to break their courteous truce and return to combat. Then he sighed lazily and delivered his reply: "I fail to envision the unlikely scenario where Bonnie could ruin such a bauble while sitting sedately on her father's lap."

Scarlett choked back the hot words of retort that were quick at her throat. Already this was not going as she had anticipated. Arguments so rarely did with Rhett—how had she forgotten that? She moved quickly to a new line of attack.

"It's hardly fitting for a little girl to wear such an expensive thing and you look such a fool, taking her to a political meeting and letting her wear—"

"I don't look a fool but rather a proud and doting father. There's nothing wrong with her wearing the necklace. Let her enjoy it. In the meantime, I recommend you exert some of your admittedly limited patience in the matter. She'll have forgotten all about that sapphire trinket in a week."

"Oh you know that's not true! She's so headstrong when she gets her heart set on something that she won't budge for anything in the world. But you could make her behave if you wanted to. If you'd just stop humoring her—"

"But I have no intention of stopping. Especially not in this matter." There was a sudden cool gleam in his eyes, though his voice remained perfectly still. "Miraculously, that gaudy necklace of yours appears to soothe Bonnie and keep the monsters away from her bed in the dark. So you see, at last one good thing has come from your dubious taste."

"Oh! You really are the most vile—"

"Moreover," he interjected smoothly, passing over her outburst, "to return to your previous point—in case you've forgotten, Bonnie is a child. And despite your assertions to the contrary, children lack the terrifying intensity of adults to nurture an obsession over any significant period of time. No, she'll have forgotten about it in a week or two—perhaps a month, at most."

"God's nightgown! A month!"

"An aeon, I'm sure." His eyes begin to dance mercilessly. "And for what possible reason could you need it back so urgently that a month's wait is a hardship to you? Is someone from that dying pack of hyenas throwing a party, Mrs. Butler? Certainly not the Conningtons, though. Heaven knows where they've vanished too."

"I don't need to explain myself to you," she retorted angrily, the tide of her frustration mounting. "And I certainly don't need a reason to want my own necklace back."

"And you'll have it back—if you'd only be sensible about the matter."

"I am being sensible, perfectly sensible. You just want to be hateful about it."

"Hateful? As always, your thinking is as misguided as it is self-centered," he jabbed. "Scarlett, try to be reasonable for once. Finally something keeps Bonnie from waking up terrified in the night—and I'll be damned to wrest it from her just to humor your selfishness. Can't you see that the necklace soothes her?"

But she did not want to see. She did not want to be reasonable. And she especially did not want to continue with this—to hear any more of these cool level arguments that thwarted her cause, thwarted it with such maddening calm and casual disregard. Frustration and rage threw her mind into a tumult and she spat out her next words heedlessly.

"I don't care that it soothes her! That necklace is mine and I want it back!" she cried loudly.

Her words cracked throughout the still hall and she realized with sudden horror that she had shouted just mere feet from where Bonnie slept. Her mouth dropped open in unhappy surprise at her blunder. For a moment, neither she nor Rhett moved. A soft small murmur, followed by a rustling of blankets, rose from Rhett's room—then silence, as Bonnie turned back to sleep.

There was a hard glitter in Rhett's dark eyes and he moved a light hand to her arm, his voice low. "If you wish to continue this, pray lower your voice before you wake Bonnie."

Scarlett sucked in her breath. Somehow he had trapped her. Somehow without her even realizing it, he had moved the terrain of battle, moved it so masterfully that she did not know it until it was already too late. For this was dangerous territory that she could not and did not want to fight on—Bonnie. Already she could feel the old accusation against her motherhood rise to sting her and her chest constricted painfully.

Rhett said nothing but his white teeth flashed beneath his mustache. He stood outlined against the stairs, and suddenly there came to Scarlett the memory of another fight here in this hallway—another fight that he had provoked and twisted with his cruel words and unfair accusations. Treacherous tears pricked at her eyelids and cold stabbing anger flooded her. No, she could not think of that ugly day now. If she thought about it now, she would cry. She would cry and then Rhett would laugh at her. No, she would not let that happen. She would not give him that satisfaction.

She twisted her arm from his grasp. Her eyes hardened to a cool emerald and when she spoke, her voice was cool too. "There is nothing else to be said. That necklace is mine."

She lifted her chin defiantly. "Bonnie has left far too many smudges not it. Do have Pork polish and clean it. I expect it to be returned to me by tomorrow morning."

"Good night," she finished chillily and, turning on her heel, moved back to her bedroom.

Back in the safety of her room, Scarlett closed the door behind her and sighed in relief mingled with pride. She had managed things well after all, thank God. She had stood her own against Rhett, never a small feat to be sure—and now she would have the necklace back tomorrow and the whole dreadful affair would be over. Then a slight chill crept into her heart. Suppose Rhett refused to give the necklace back to her tomorrow? Suppose he continued to be hateful about it? Then she pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

"I'll think about that tomorrow," she decided. "If I think about it now, it'll just upset me and there's no use in that." She was about to toss off her wrapper and sink gratefully into bed when she heard the sudden creak of the door. Her throat went dry and she whirled around. Rhett stood in the doorway, his face unreadable though his black eyes gleamed.

"Rhett!" Her eyes narrowed to green slits. "What in God's good name are you doing? I told you—this conversation is over."

He closed the door noiselessly behind him, and there was a savage grace about his movements that made her draw back, suddenly uncertain.

"This conversation is over when I say it is." His voice sounded with a low note that frightened her, frightened her yet sent a small jolt of excitement darting down her spine, despite her fear. For this was the first time that he had spoken to her with anything except bland indifference in so long and—

"This conversation is not over. I for one have a great deal more to say," came Rhett's words, pulling her from her thoughts.

"I should like to know, for instance, what possesses you to be so insistent about such a minor matter? You have yet to present any plausible reason why you need the necklace back so badly, beyond the general claim that it is yours. So I am intrigued by the peculiarities of your mind. Naturally, you must have a good reason to want to take it, other than your abnormal vanity and selfishness, that is."

"I will not stand here and listen to your hateful insults."

"You shall listen. You are quite an unfeeling woman, to want to take a beloved object from a small child who is plagued with nightmares just to—"

"Take it?" cried Scarlett, goaded at how smoothly he had bestowed Bonnie ownership of the necklace. "Take it from Bonnie? It's not hers, Rhett—it's mine! And in case you've forgotten, I gave that necklace to Bonnie in the first place. And it's mine to take back, whenever I care to."

"But alas you are mistaken. I won't let you take it from her."

He spoke as though the matter was closed and rage abruptly blotted out her earlier fear—rage coupled with impotent frustration at him, at herself. Nothing was going as planned. And she'd been a fool earlier, a stupid fool to think she could so blithely settle the matter, especially with a spiteful cad like Rhett.

"Oh! How can you be so horrid?" she cried childishly. "This is just like you! You're always doing this to me. You're always taking things from me!" she accused, her voice cracking with the shriek of the irrational.

Something flickered in his face and his lips jerked down in his old jeer. "Taking things from you? Good Lord! Spare me your victimized outrage." His voice was light and cool.

"Yes, I'm always taking things from you—that's quite clear. Surely this," he made a florid gesture about her room, "shrine to your deplorable taste is evidence of that. As is this architectural nightmare of a house. Not to mention that overstuffed jewelry box with only one bauble absent—the necklace which, as you so kindly pointed out, you yourself gave to Bonnie. Yes, I'm always taking things from you, quite obviously."

She could come up with no easy rejoinder to these barbed words and instead fell silent. She glared coldly at him, her eyes glistening. Sensing the weakness in her armor, he continued pitilessly.

"Yes, I'm always taking things from you, so many in fact it's quite hard for me to keep them straight. So please do enumerate them. Tell me, Scarlett, what is it that I've taken from you?"

She had not expected this bald line of questioning and her mouth fell open. Mistaking her surprise for confusion, his face twisted into hard lines, an unkind smile on his lips.

"That's right," he said and there was a dark note like bitterness in his voice. "That's right—I never took a damn thing from you. You never wanted anything I had to give."

Suddenly she thought of the baby, thought of it with sick visceral longing. Thought too of the dark room with death in it, of her feeble frightened nausea and the wracking pains, alternating dull then jagged, that had tugged at her with gaunt hands. Sharp pain lashed her heart and for a moment she could not breathe. She had lost so much at his hands and he had the gall to stand here and joke—to insult and upbraid her when he was the cause of all her troubles. In a flash, she remembered from that far-off morning her dizzy urge to claw him, to see the blood run down his dark face. She had failed then, but oh she would not fail now—and how sweetly satisfying it would be to do it!

She swung towards him but he was quicker and wrenched her hand down, bending it behind her back with a swift jerk that made her cry out, embarrassed.

"Careful," he drawled, leisurely, bitingly. "I do so hate it when things get out of hand."

The words sliced her like a knife and, with them, her humiliation was complete. She would kill him, maim him. She would hurt him if it was the very last thing she did—hurt this cool impertinent stranger who stood before her, so callous, so careless, so untouchable.

With savagery she propelled her free arm forward until it connected violently with his chest. He took a slight step back in surprise but she did not relent and hit his chest again and again until her fist hurt. Her hair flew wildly about her face and the salty tang of tears assaulted her eyes, but she was beyond caring. She was beyond caring about anything except her feverish desire to hurt him, hurt him for all the times he had hurt her.

"Damn you!" she cried, her voice thick with rage. "You—you took everything from me. You made everyone hate me—you know you did. You took Bonnie away from me and made her love you more. You took—oh God, you took the baby from me!"

He sucked in his breath rapidly and wrapped his arm about her waist so tightly that it knocked the breath out of her for a stunned sickening moment. Then she was crying again, crying bitter tears of rage mingled with new shame at her own weakness and her stupidity. For she had told him. She had told him about the baby and now he would sting her with some barbed drawling insult that would haunt her forever. But the insult never came.

Instead the arm about her waist pulled her even tighter, so close she could feel the hard swell of his chest beneath his linen shirt. He released her captive hand too and moved his hand to her hair, stroking it lightly, murmuring with soft wordless murmurs that blurred and flowed like a calm lazy river. Expecting violence, this sudden gentleness startled her, surprising her a bit out of her fury, and after a time her tears lessened, then subsided altogether. The fires of her rage had somehow been extinguished and there were only faint embers of fatigue left. She felt feeble, her knees weak from strain, and she was suddenly thankful for the iron grip of his arm, keeping her steady.

He held her close for a very long time, so long she felt her face warm in blush beneath her wet cheeks. After a long while he moved to rest his head on hers, and then there were fresh tears on her face again and she could feel his hands grace her hair again and somehow she had a fumbling knowledge that this was an apology—that he was sorry. He had hurt her and he was sorry.

She drew a soft quick breath at this realization and he quietly tilted her face up to his. His eyes were naked and in them was self-recrimination and something else—a dark flickering flame that stilled her, then made her grow suddenly hot, then cold. He cupped her face with both hands and then his lips were upon hers. He had never kissed her like this before, so gently, so tenderly, with a softness that almost neared hesitation but somehow left her more dizzily weak than his most ardent caresses ever had. Trembling, breathless, she closed her eyes and then for a timeless time everything faded to nothingness except the swaying dizziness taking her over and the feeling of his lips on hers…

~O~

Hours later Scarlett drifted in that hazy twilight world between sleep and wakefulness. Moonlight cast a slivery gleam over the dark room as she rested her head on the hard pillow of Rhett's chest, her dark hair wrapped around his neck. He held her firmly against his long body and she was content, content and warm and tired. How pleasant it was to be held like this and how long it had been since she had been in his arms. She sighed and the dark drowsiness of her mind clouded out all other thoughts. Yes, this was so pleasant, so very pleasant. She had missed this, she knew that to be true. In her murky state, this thought did not seem strange. Instead it seemed very natural. So natural that she wondered idly why she had not thought it before. For it was clear to her now—she had missed this; she had missed him.

Sleep tugged at her, pulling her further and further away from consciousness, and in her tired mind it all suddenly made sense. She had missed him, missed him desperately without even knowing it, during the many long months that had passed since her accident. Yes, she had missed him—that was the strange secret behind her mystifying boredom and bewilderment. Why had she not realized it before? Her last thought before sleep took her was that she would tell him tomorrow. She would tell him that she had missed him and somehow she knew he would understand and everything would be better.

Rhett's broad chest was warm against her tired head and she nestled closer to him. He drew her nearer and she murmured something soft and indistinct into darkness, a faint sound no louder than a whisper—I miss you. Succumbing to sleep at last, she did not hear the words she had spoken, but they did not escape the other occupant of the bed who, upon hearing them, drew a sudden startled breath.

Rhett stared at the ceiling in the dark. He seemed to have been staring blankly at it now for what seemed like hours. Though how much time had really passed, he could not say. Time seemed to have stopped altogether as his mind worked itself around and around again the night's twin, and wholly unforeseen, revelations. Scarlett missed him and she had wanted their child. How miraculous and unexpected and altogether jarring—this astounding knowledge that made his heart seize up and swell in one of the few moments of honest thanksgiving before the Lord that he had ever had.

Had it not been for the gentle weight of her head on his chest, he would have thought the happenings of this night a wild prosperous dream. For this was so far beyond anything he had dared dream over the last year—certain that the time for dreaming had ended before the blunt hand of fate. And yet he had been wrong. She missed him, his heart sang in exultation. She missed him. For a moment this knowledge filled him with such intense joy he felt it would crush his lungs.

Then before he could help it, his mind leapt to the night's other and far more bittersweet revelation—she had wanted their child. The weight of his guilt rose up to accuse him. She had wanted their child and this knowledge was as sweet as it was cruel, destroying as it did the neat chronicle he had constructed about last few painful years of their lives. But now he saw, as he had not seen then. Yes, he now saw with merciless clarity, replaying the events of last spring again in his mind. He had left her, left her to face the scorching cauldron of scandal alone, flattering himself that he was justified in doing so. That she did not care; that she would never care. He had left her—and all the while she had been carrying his child and wanting to carry it, probably missing him and certainly missing Bonnie, suddenly remembering her other accusation from earlier that evening.

And then he had come home and— He closed his eyes. It was too monstrous to be borne, to think about even now. And over this last long year she had lingered on in invisible pain. Pain he had not even suspected, only too relieved to retreat behind courteous indifference and to take comfort in the balm of Bonnie's love.

Scarlett stirred against him, murmuring in peaceful contentment, and nestled closer against his chest. God knew he did not deserve this from her. He did not deserve this unexpected second chance—that was damn sure—but he had never been in the business of questioning his chances when fate dealt him a good hand. No, he had always been in the business of seizing them, boldly and decisively. He should do that now; he must do that now.

But then the old caginess rose abruptly in his throat, reticence hardened by bitter experience giving him pause. Suppose he was wrong after all this? He had been so close, so tantalizingly close, to this moment so many times before only to see it fall apart each time—a perilous house of cards that toppled every time he reached for it. Logic told him that this time was different. She had told him herself that she missed him and she had wanted their child. But still—still—the morrow loomed with sudden uncertainty. Perhaps he should leave, just for a little while, to get better perspective on matters and plot a sound plan of action.

Leave. Rhett frowned bitterly. Yes, that was always his answer, wasn't it? To leave her. After all what had the last decade of his life been but one long experiment in leaving her? Leaving her during the war years, each departure out of Atlanta swearing he was never coming back. Leaving her on the dark road to Tara, the drumbeat of war hot in his chest, pulling him away from her despite his love. Leaving her off and on during that wretched time her last name was Kennedy, each trip to New Orleans incapable of blotting out the bitter fact that she was another man's wife. And—most cruelly of all—leaving her again last spring, leaving her alone to navigate the welter of rapture and anger and heartbreak and hurt pride that he had left.

Yes, he was always leaving her—and last time he had done it, it had reaped disastrous results. So much so that he had believed, before tonight, that his actions had forever slammed closed the door to their happiness. But he had been wrong. Somehow the door had still been open an infinitesimal crack, bringing them to this miraculous improbable night. If he left now—even for a day—he unerringly knew he would never again have another chance. He would lose her—and whatever likelihood they still had for happiness—forever. Better to stay and say his piece and admit his part and let the chips fall where they may. And yet—yet—