A/N: A little character development, and Melanie! Thank you all so much for reviewing – they brighten my day immeasurably.
The next morning, Scarlett brought Wade and Ella with her to visit their aunt. Melanie's face shone as she ushered Scarlett into the shabby little house on Ivy. The children had already run inside after Beau to play. Scarlett looked around in almost expectant disdain, only to find that she couldn't muster her old superiority. It was a shabby house, but it reminded her a little of Tara now – a place that could have, should have been grander, that was somehow made comforting simply because people cared for it so. The little house glowed with Melanie's love. Her own Peachtree mansion, for all its splendor, lacked that particular charm. After her fever broke, Scarlett had felt oppressed by all the dark, imposing colors and harsh lights, even though she was mostly confined to her room. Tara had been so much brighter in comparison. She had felt able to breathe better after she arrived. Oh, if Rhett ever found out how she really felt about the house! she thought with an odd, breathless anticipation.
"Darling, let me look at you!" Melanie said, releasing her from another embrace, and continuing to hold Scarlett at the elbows. "Dearest, you look the belle of five counties once more!" she proclaimed. The flattery warmed Scarlett, even though she knew it to be untrue. She still felt tired and her looking-glass reflected it. It was true enough that she at least looked a sight better than when she had last been here—no, when she had last seen Melanie.
"Oh Melly, you do go on." she replied. Before she could overthink the impulse, she kissed Melanie's pink cheek. "I just wanted to thank you for taking such good care of me while I was—" she began. Her stomach rolled as she rushed through the words. She did want to thank Melanie, but she hated to think of those weeks—the fever and nausea, the sharp pains and dull aches, the nightmares from which she could not escape.
Melanie's cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink at this praise, scant though it seemed to Scarlett. "My dear, Scarlett, there is no need to thank me! You would—you have done the same for me, when Be—" she bit back the rest of the sentence, chewing her lip. Scarlett had gone pale. How thoughtless of her! "Darling, do have a seat." she said, ushering Scarlett into her best chair. What a thing to have said! Her precious Beau had survived. She felt weak as she thought of her life if he had not.
She cast about for a subject that should be more agreeable. "Captain Butler must be so pleased to have you home again." Her cheeks burned hot as she thought of their last meetings: the terrible self-recriminations and the subterfuge which she had agreed to enter into with him. Others might talk, but she knew both to be shining—or, well, perhaps tarnished—signs of his obvious love for his wife.
Scarlett's face pinked at these words, echoes of Rhett the night before, but she could not bring her eyes to Melanie's earnest gaze as she spoke. "Yes, he— said so, after supper last night."
Melanie laughed lightly. "Of course he did! He and Bonnie were thick as thieves while you were gone, but I know they both missed you. You don't need him to say he's glad you're home to know he is!"
Scarlett raised a stricken face to Melanie's loving gaze. Oh, how could she be such a ninny! Melly, who knew that he hadn't come to her. She had been frantic with worry when he had been away, while she had almost died and he hadn't even looked in on her. "That's a fine thing to say when he didn't even see me when I was sick!"
The stinging words felt good leaving her mouth, but she'd no sooner spoken than she wished she hadn't. Melly was such a sweet simpleton. She couldn't know anything about the darker sides of a man's nature. Not when she was married to Ashley, who didn't have any dark sides to his nature.
"Oh, darling!" Melly said, flying from her chair to perch herself on the arm of Scarlett's. "He didn't— why— you know it's not—" she struggled to find words. Could she explain without betraying his confidences? She didn't even know what to explain. So much of Captain Butler's drunken ramblings were incoherent, and nearly all the rest were simply untrue. She began again, "He was devastated, dear. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, he just—" she broke off, her face aflame again with the memory of his intoxication.
Scarlett couldn't make sense of this recounting, and then decided she didn't believe it for a minute. Rhett had not even been happy to see her, and then he had said— She had missed him, but he had not missed her, and so he had not come to her room. And then in the weeks before she went to Tara, and yesterday, he had been so cool and polite.
She remembered his face when she had told him she was to have Bonnie, the hard, driving fear. "Do I really mean so much to you?" It was almost the last time he had seemed to care about her health. Then she remembered his answer. Was he worried about his investment? She frowned.
Oh, what did it matter, she decided in the next instant. Melanie had always thought so generously of Rhett, and she was likely just saying what she imagined Rhett to have been like during her illness. If Rhett didn't come see her, of course Melanie would attribute the noblest possible motives to excuse him. Scarlett was so tired of wondering about him. If he wanted her to know anything, he was going to have to tell her, because she was simply not going to devote any more time to the mysteries of Rhett's impenetrable mind.
She smiled at her friend—Melly was a goose, but she was a dear. Scarlett recalled, suddenly, sitting on the porch with her at Tara, their faces black with soot from the Yankees' arson. She remembered thinking, at the time, that Melanie was always there when you needed her.
"Do you remember," she asked, turning ever so slightly in the chair to look up at her friend, "when the Yankees came to Tara?" It was an absurd question, a thing that could never be forgotten, like asking, "Do you remember your wedding?" But it felt almost good to look back on a time like that, now that they were safely so far away from it.
Melly nodded, answering her question with, "And you hid the wallet in Beau's diaper?" Scarlett laughed softly, brushing this off with a wave of her hand, "Well, I couldn't let them find it!"
This somehow led to other reminiscences, memories which should not have been pleasant, except that viewed from the other side of hunger and fear, some of them could almost be downright humorous. Without actually mentioning the horrid little man, how they had come into possession of the wallet in the first place, or the scuppernong vine's secret, they even recounted that awful day, and Scarlett remarked, wiping tears from her eyes, "And in just your shimmy!"
She had not liked to think about it, but she had never forgotten the image: Melly, too weak even to walk, dragging that sword behind her nevertheless.
As her laughter subsided, Scarlett leaned her head against Melanie's side for a moment. Melly was always there for her.
They spent the rest of the morning in companionable comfort. Melly urged them to stay for dinner. Scarlett's heart beat quickly and uncomfortably at the idea of a meal with Ashley. It really wasn't necessary, she demurred without specifics.
"Please, darling, it's no trouble," Melly assured her, "Dilcey sent along a dinner with Ashley this morning; he said he'd be working all day. We have more than enough, I'm sure. Oh, I am so happy to see you again." she chattered on. Scarlett relented under the cheerful onslaught, though Melanie's definition of more than enough couldn't possibly match hers.
The food was wholesome and good, and her children well-behaved enough that the meal didn't try her patience.
Scarlett left the little house feeling lighter than she had in months.