Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of Margaret Mitchell, her heirs, and their assigns.

Rhett was sipping yet another glass of whisky and going through his mental card file of Scarlett's potential lovers when she peeked into the room. "Rhett? They told me you were in here."

"Upon lengthy consideration, Mrs. Butler, I've come to a decision." She flinched and he stood up. "Where are my manners? Please… sit." He pointed to the couch. "A woman in your condition needs her rest. Do you want something to eat or drink?"

"No, I'm not hungry just now, thank you." She looked up at him, warily.

He sat back down. She sat primly on the couch. He recalled the topic of conversation.

"I have decided, as I was saying, what to do about our situation."

He could see her mind was racing. It pleased some part of him to draw this out.

"My choices are to call you out on your adultery and divorce you or accept your bastard child as my own."

A broken sort of gasp escaped her mouth, which hung open. She caught her breath and was about to start talking, but he held his hand up. "Please allow me to finish, Mrs. Butler. Divorce will be difficult, because although I've given you plenty of reason to claim adultery, no one has seen you do anything. In short, I have no proof. Therefore, I have decided to acknowledge your child as mine, provided you tell me whose face will be gracing the Butler name. Who was it?"

"Who was who?" She stood up, outrage pouring out of her.

"Who did you fornicate with, creating a child I will have to acknowledge or divorce you over?" He walked around his desk and stood over her, forcing her to sit on the couch. "Was it Ashley?"

She shook her head, fear creeping over her face.

"Was it that Cobb man you bought the mill from?"

She shook her head again, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to find words.

"One of your managers?"

"It was you! It's going to be your face!"

"The hell it was! Don't lie Scarlett!"

"You pride yourself in being able to see right through me but now you suddenly think I'm capable of lying? It's only you. No one else exists, at least not in that way."

"Need I remind you that I took precautions?"

"Of course you did, the first time!"

That backed him right around his desk and into his chair again. "We made love more than once that night." He didn't believe it, but then, suddenly, he did. Damn him for mixing his liquor. He'd kept a clear head by sticking with one form of alcohol at a time. For three months the sights and sounds of other places had kept him from remembering that night clearly. Now amongst the smells and feeling of home he couldn't avoid it. He looked over at her. She was watching him, and then she nodded her head encouragingly.

He recalled drowsing and then finding that he was in the same bed as her. He'd been delighted to find her there and had quickly taken advantage of the fact. She had reached up to him and welcomed him into her arms. He'd called her his darling. The memory that made him leave New Orleans had been a subsequent moment to the initial comfort they'd exchanged. What he'd been longing to repeat was the moment they had conceived a child.

"You told me I had used precautions." He was grasping at straws, as the events of the night became clearer to him.

"It was true when you asked me."

"I don't want a child. I can't risk my heart again."

"I accept that; this child is mine. It's my responsibility to get through this pregnancy, to bear the child, and to raise it."

"Doctor Meade knows, I take it? That's why he wanted me to look after you."

"And a proper scolding I will get from him when you leave again." Her voice was resigned. "I'm sure to be in worse condition than I was the last time he saw me."

"You know I can't stay?"

"I know it changes nothing. You've been perfectly clear."

It changed everything. His mother would not let this rest, and a hundred thousand other details of his life would be changed irrevocably. He mentally shrugged. Scarlet was indicating that she was willing to shoulder the burden. Her shoulders, while adorable, were perfectly capable of handling the load. He thought of how fragile she had seemed when he'd last seen her. She had reminded him of Melanie. He went a little sick. Melanie's last pregnancy had killed her.

He stood up and walked back over to sit next to her on the couch. "Are you in any danger?"

"Doctor Meade says I'm well enough. I'm past the time for some problems to emerge, so now I just need to be careful."

"Like avoiding the staircase."

"It's so wide open I feel like anything could sweep through and trip me. I feel safer on the back stairs. And—" She looked up. There were no tears in her eyes, but there was an intensity in her face— "I can't lose this one. Any more than you can risk loving another child, I can't risk losing one. Not your child."

She was being ridiculous and he should break her of it, but he'd always indulged her every whim in the past and this one was really harmless.

"Have you told the children?"

"Not yet. I would have had to, and soon, but I felt so protective about this until I saw you again. It's a special secret of my own."

"What about the servants?"

"I think some may suspect. They do my laundry, after all. I haven't said anything."

"Why?"

She didn't dissemble or ask what he meant. "I wanted the baby we lost. And after Bonnie—well, Doctor Meade said it might bring us back together again if we had another child. He was quite concerned for your health."

It was galling to think that old busybody would remark about him to Scarlett of all people. He refocused. "This won't be Bonnie. We can't replace her."

"Nor would I want a child for that. Rhett, I know what I said after Bonnie was born, and it was wrong of me. I've come to learn in many ways that I want your child. I want your children. I want them for your legacy, and also for their own sake."

"You're a terrible mother."

She signed in resignation, and didn't deny the allegation. "I don't imagine that will change much either, but I hope to get better at it. I think I might be better with Wade now, and even a little with Ella."

"I was a worse father," he said pensively.

"You were a loving, dear father! A bit overindulgent, perhaps, but it would have been corrected in time."

"I don't know if I can face this. I came home for—and I'm not staying."

"We've learned not to expect you to."

They were at some sort of impasse, but not a critical one. He couldn't divorce her under the circumstances, at least not in Georgia and certainly not if he really wanted any claim on the world he'd grown up in. The man who'd lived in his skin even a year ago would have delighted in this news, would have called this woman his dearest wife. Now he was being offered what that man wanted, and it turned his stomach.

"Rhett." He looked up to see her biting her lip.

"Yes?"

"I hate to ask, but I told the children I might have a surprise for them. Do you want to see them? They're home from school."

Could he stand it? "Yes," he found himself saying, "I must admit I've missed them."

Rhett and Scarlett found the children in the nursery, quietly engrossed in their own pursuits. They each had their own bedrooms, but this room had been made over for homework and playtime. It wasn't a perfect arrangement; Wade frequently complained that his sister's chatter made concentration difficult on his compositions. Yet he didn't retreat to his bedroom.

"Wade? Ella?" Scarlett stood in the doorway. "I have your surprise here." She stood aside and let Rhett move into view.

Wade leapt up from his work table and Ella ran over from her doll house.

"Uncle Rhett! Uncle Rhett!" they both exclaimed as they came over for hugs. For several moments there was tumult until they had Rhett sitting in an overstuffed chair where he once frequently sat to read stories to them. Scarlett sat in a chair nearby.

"Mama told us at breakfast that she might have a surprise for us, but this is better than anything," said Wade. "Are you home to stay?"

Rhett didn't want to answer that question. "Mama has a surprise for all of us," he said.

"Rhett!" interjected Scarlett. "I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything yet."

"It won't be a secret much longer," he said. "They might as well know now, from us." Rhett thought the tendency of children finding out about important family business only after their playmates overheard their parents talking was barbaric.

She nodded her assent. "If you think it's best."

"Do you want to tell them?" he asked.

"If you want them to know, it's for you to tell them," she answered.

The children had turned to Scarlett and were clamoring. "What is it Mama? Is it ice cream? A new dollhouse?"

"Hush, or I won't say!" said Rhett with a laugh. They were suddenly silent. "Mama is going to give you a new brother or sister." He had to swallow hard over the thought of the last word, but the children were busy talking to Scarlet at that point.

"Can we see it now, mama? Where is it? Can we choose?"

"We still have to wait a bit," she said gently. "The baby will be coming to live here during your summer vacation."

"That's ages from now!"

"Can we have a brother this time?"

Rhett laughed. "That's not something we get to pick."

"Mother?" Ella asked quietly, "Bonnie won't get to see the new baby."

Rhett barely caught the trembling of his wife's lip before he put his hand over his face. He heard her answer.

"No, not like you will, dear, but I think she knows about the baby."

"Do you think she's happy?"

"I do, dear. I think she knows how much we miss her, and, and surely she's in Heaven, and she's helping God pick out this baby for us, because she knows how sad we've been, and because it's her brother or sister, too."

Ella nodded. "Bonnie will be very particular. She'll send us a good baby."

Rhett looked up to see Scarlett smiling as tears ran down her face. "Of course she will."

"All right, children," Rhett said. "Why don't you play for a while until your supper. I think Mother needs some rest, and I intend to see she gets it. Why don't I come see you after your dinner?"

Wade and Ella smiled as Rhett led his wife down the hall. He shut and locked the door of her bedroom behind them before turning Scarlett around and working her buttons.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"You're taking a nap," he answered. She stepped out of the dress and started to untie her bustle. Once that was disposed of, he came up behind her and kissed her neck. "After I get what I came here for," he whispered, moving along her shoulder.

"Rhett?" she tried to turn to look at him, but he was working at her laces. Once she was loosened, his arms came around her and he started unfastening her hooks. The corset followed the bustle and she turned around.

"What did you come here for? All the way from New Orleans?"

He hated looking sheepish. "I didn't mean to say that."

"You never said why you were here. I know you were going to keep the talk down, although Christmas would have been a good time as well. Are you saying you came," she waved her hands between them, "for this?"

He shrugged and ran his hands through his hair.

"You told me that women's bodies mean very little. I assumed you would have had quite a collection while you were gone, all the while blaming me for infidelity and ignoring your own."

He'd said too god-damn many things in his life and she knew them all, a fact that was hard to reconcile with the lack of attention to people that he constantly twitted her about. There was a truth in there he would have to consider sometime when he was on a train or ship, traveling away and trying to forget her.

"Rhett?"

"It would seem that your body means more than others," he answered. "Even now, when I can't love you any more, when being in the same room with you is torture, I want you instead of other women." He turned toward the window. "I shouldn't admit that to you." He sighed. "Even now you have too damned much power over me."

She came up behind him and slid her hand under his vest. He turned and her hand fell awkwardly to her side. "Rhett, as I said the night that we, well the night that this happened," she said as she patted her tummy. "I said it's all right if it doesn't mean anything to you. Just because it means something to me, it doesn't have to mean anything to you."

He was right back in the firehouse prison, and she was offering her body to him for a pittance again. He had wanted desperately to accept back then but wasn't able to. He probably shouldn't now, but he was going to, anyway. "Why are you willing to do this?"

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and honest. "You did tell me marriage might be fun, that I would enjoy it, and it seems I do, even if it took me ages to realize." She put both of her hands on his chest. "Rhett, I've been longing and wishing for you all these nights since November." Her face, no less honest, was filled with embarrassment at having admitted it. "I don't have the options you do," she pointed out.

The little minx was pushing his jacket over his shoulders. He put his hands over hers. "I'm leaving, and soon, and I have no idea when I'll be back."

She nodded, still pushing his jacket. "I understand perfectly. You were away on business, you came home because you wanted to—" she searched for a term— "have relations with me, and when you've had as much as you want, you'll go away again." The coat fell on the floor. Scarlet was now standing between his arms. "Isn't that it?"

It was more a calculation of wanting her body versus having to put up with her the rest of the day. He put his arms around her, folding them at the small of her back. "Close enough.

"I will live with that." She was standing on tip-toe. "I have my own business interests when you're gone, you know."

The first kiss tore through him. Based upon her gasp, he suspected she felt it too. The room darkened as the window drape fell into position, but Rhett didn't care about shadows or light. He couldn't kiss her enough, running his hands along her skin and following with his lips. Scarlett, although not as practiced as some, was following a path of her own, pushing his vest to follow the jacket. Once she started unbuttoning his shirt, she got distracted. Rhett had always dreamed of her lips in the places they now went, but the reality, even this reality, made him go weak. Ever so gently, he moved them toward the bed.

The sun was setting when Rhett left his sleeping wife in her bedroom and looked in the nursery. The children were not there. He found them downstairs eating their dinner in the kitchen.

"You're really here!" said Ella. "Can you read me a story before bed?"

"I wanted to play checkers!" said Wade.

Rhett chuckled. "I don't see why we can't play checkers while Ella gets ready for bed, and then I can read while Wade gets ready."

"Is Mama coming down for supper?"

"She's very tired and she's taking a nap right now. Dilcey, if you make a tray for Mrs. Butler while the children and I are occupied, I will take it up to her."

Dilcey nodded in that dignified way she had. "Certainly, Mr. Butler."

A/N: I was kind of worried about this pace of posting the story, but then realized it will be several weeks at this pace before I catch up with what's already written, so why not? Thanks again to all the lovely reviewers out there, including Melody-Rose-20, gumper, Guest, Romabeachgirl1981, gabyhyatt, Truckee Gal, and Kinderby.

Oh, and a special shout-out to gumper, who noticed the thing with the nightshirts and maybe wondered if it were a hint or a mistake? I guess we know the answer now!