If pain was what she was supposed to feel right now, then pain was nothing but a dry mouth. She could not find another thing to say. If she was right, and she was sure that she was, then she had wasted years of her life playing a game whose rules she hadn't known and, worse yet, she had believed she was winning.

She had been wrong. Love and tenderness and sacrifices had never stood a chance before him, if his mind had been already made up. He had never considered yielding an option. It was that simple. He had toyed with her like a cruel child would with a bug, allowing it to crawl up the entire length of his arm before dismissing it with a careless shove of the hand back to the beginning.

What was it that he had once told her during the war, when general Lee was making his triumphal advance into Pennsylvania, that the South stood no chance of winning, despite this row of apparent victories? That the North was fighting the war with only half its resources, but, if necessary, could easily turn to the other half and defeat its opponent?

Like the Yankees, he had played this game with one hand behind his back. She had lived with him, talked to him and made love with him and she had thought she was slowly getting through his defenses. But now she understood that, when she got too close, all he had to do was bring that arm out and reject her. And apparently this child meant getting too close.

There was an all too familiar lump in her throat and she brought a slender hand to her neck, as if willing it to go away. This was not the time for weakness. What she needed to do now was to walk away from this room and find a quiet place where she could put her thoughts in order and wait for the inevitable pain to take the place of numbness.

Rhett was watching her with an odd expression, as if debating whether the conversation was worth continuing. But it was her lack of response, the vacant expression on her face after she had uttered those words, "You've tried to make me leave you," that made him react.

"Do you honestly think that, if I had tried, we'd be here today?"

Their conversations had never before gone so far, but the pattern was familiar. Whenever one of them was dancing on the edge, ready to utter things that could not, would not be ignored, the other would reach out in the last second and draw them away from danger. And Rhett was using that chance now.

"Do you remember anything I told you that night, when I agreed to live with you again?"

His tone was gentle now, the tone he used when Ella couldn't remember some poem she'd had to learn and he would help her by whispering the first words. And much like her daughter would, Scarlett looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes, uncertainty etched in her features, trying her best to conjure the memory of that night and give the right answer.

Though the funeral had long before ended, its sense of closure was yet to descend upon the house on East Battery. The rooms upstairs still held the faint traces of Eleanor Butler's last earthly hours, and it was that what made her seek Rhett's company on the porch. She would have avoided him that night, in hope of delaying the talk that she knew must now ensue, but she couldn't face the silence by herself; it reminded her of other bleak hours from the past, of other dark houses turned barren by mourning.

The humid, menacing heat of May was beginning to dissolve into the night, as they stood like two strangers in a waiting room, side by side, and yet not quite together, their silences flowing like parallel rivers. Rhett was staring pensively at the glass of bourbon in his hand, and she started to relax, for he didn't seem inclined to talk.

He'd had such a terrible day; it must have dredged up old wounds—she knew that and she harbored the small hope that it might keep him from bringing up other unpleasant subjects. If only things between them could remain as they had been this morning. She'd been at his side, arm linked through his, and, when the coffin started its descent, he tensed so suddenly, unthinkingly, that her hand was captive there, crushed in the crook of his elbow. She winced slightly, almost imperceptibly, but didn't say anything and made no move to withdraw her hand. In a strange way she felt as though he was letting her in, as though he was sharing some of his pain with her. And then Rhett remembered himself and loosened the grip, bringing his other hand over hers apologetically.

"I made arrangements for the hotel," he finally broke the silence.

She breathed in, suddenly feeling as though her dress weighed a hundred pounds. This was it, the time had come. Her arrival in Charleston in March had been another daring strike in the long campaign of winning Rhett back. He had had neither the occasion, nor the energy of pushing her away while his mother had been ill, he had accepted her company and help, but nothing had changed. He would now send her back to Atlanta.

"My mother and I," he continued in a voice devoid of any inflection, "have decided the best way of passing this house to Rosemary would be by stating it in the will. This way, her husband would have no qualms about it—it would not look as I am doing any act of charity. I want them to move here as soon as possible."

It was as if nothing had changed. He'd talked to her in this tone before, during the long evenings they had spent alone in this house, when not tending to the ill—alone indeed, because there was no past in the room with them, just the brandy, coffee and cigars, and Rhett's voice, as he was talking slowly, evenly, more to himself than to her. And she had hung on his every word, not because she understood what he was saying, but because she loved him and because it was her fate to only love men that talked in riddles. But now the fragile truce between them should have shattered under Mrs. Butler's death. And yet his voice had remained the same uninvolved but friendly drawl.

"If you want to live here, I have a couple of houses in mind. You should of course offer your opinion too," he nodded towards the distinctive triangle Scarlett's white handcuffs and pale face made in the dark. "I suppose we will need a larger one. The children will have their needs."

His words registered, but her mind couldn't process them. Her mind that should have been laughing and crying and thanking God—her mind that only felt a sort of numb, incredulous joy. If this truly was the moment she had been fighting for, why didn't she feel like she had conquered the world?

"So you are—you are going to—"she started, feeling more ineloquent than ever in her life.

"Yes," he cut her off calmly. "I am going to return to the bosom of our family."

He was mocking her, and he was mocking himself with that choice of words, but she didn't care. The first defined sensation had reached her mind. It wasn't what she had so often imagined she would feel in this moment—happiness, or warmth, or tenderness—but only a vague sense of victory. Because she may not have conquered the world, but nonetheless, she had won and Rhett had lost, and it was that simple.

Of course, she was also aware that this wasn't the end of it. It was just a first battle won, and in front of her lay the war; a war she needed to know where to start. There was one last thing she had to grasp before they would step into their married life again: how much of this was just conditional surrender. She breathed deeply, summoning her courage, and asked,

"Why?"

How could she know the answer after all these years, if she hadn't known it then? He had said so many things that night and she remembered so little. She hadn't allowed his words to touch her then, simply because she knew they held a different, secret meaning, one that he wouldn't admit to himself. To her, all he had said translated and converged into one central idea: he was giving her this chance because deep down he still loved her. It didn't matter that he wouldn't openly confess it, she knew it had to be true. Why would he have returned to her otherwise?

Scarlett had fully expected that, someday, when they reminisced about that conversation, she could tease him about how she'd known before he did that he still loved her. But now that dream was as distant as ever and she had to find something, anything neutral enough to offer as an answer.

"You said—you said Ashley was made of sterner stuff."

"So you remember that, don't you?" he said with a slight, non-amused smirk. "Yes, I said that, among other things, but I suppose it is as good a description of it as anything else. He is made of sterner stuff where you're concerned, though, if you come to think of it, the way he resisted you was by getting married and fighting a war—two things I have no intention of ever doing again in this life.

"But no, it's not only that, though I'll admit to laying emphasis on it at the time. It was true that I was tired of running away from you. I knew you wouldn't stop—you never stop. And, at my age, one starts to wonder whether it's worth the effort, fighting and all. But I would have continued despite that, because we're the same in this aspect: I can never stop either, not when there still is the smallest reason to fight left. I would have continued to run from you till I lay dying, telling myself I was only preserving my sanity, if it weren't for the fact that I lack your talent at overlooking the truth."

She suddenly felt miserable. He was talking to her like he had done only once before, openly, without his usual quips, without the sarcasm; he was talking to her like she had always wished he would. And she still couldn't follow him.

"The wrecks our lives turned out to be—" Rhett stopped, as if checking his words.

"The…misfortune of your life," he started again, raking a hand through his hair, "came from two sources, equally: the war and myself. The war is as impersonal as it is inevitable, but I—I have been blessed with free will and cursed with a conscience, so I had to pay my dues. And for some reason, that price, the one you requested, was myself. So be it," he shrugged and for a second, before he set his eyes on her again, Scarlett had the impression that he was talking to someone else; someone with whom he'd had this conversation before.

"I had no doubt I was not worth it, but that wouldn't have made any difference to you. You see, I kept telling myself you were not worth it, both before and after I married you. It didn't stop me; it wouldn't stop you. These things know no reason. You were hurting yourself, and you were hurting others in this mad, irrational campaign of yours. And I felt sorry for—"

"Sorry?" she interjected, appalled. "You felt sorry for me? You did this out of mercy?" He had finally reached a ground familiar to Scarlett; she felt she was grasping his words for the first time in this conversation—only that their meaning made the blood thump in her ears.

"Oh, Scarlett, you'll never understand this, will you? You will always be a firm believer in clear lines; black and white; love and hate and all the rest of the clichés. But, darling," he continued patiently, taking her hand in his again, "things are never like that. There are shades, and there are grays... and one can still continue to care for a person without that signifying undying love. Can you follow this at all?"

"No—no I can't." She jerked her hand free. "Either you love me or you don't. And if you don't, you had no right to lead me on, to—"

It wasn't fury what had smothered her words; it was the knowledge that she was wrong. He had never tried to deceive her; he had never said anything that went further than a vague commitment. She felt the pressure of tears against her lids and lowered her head, to preserve at least this small measure of dignity, because it wouldn't be long before he drew her attention to that fact himself. But to her surprise, when he spoke again, he sounded as if he had accepted the truth of her words; and though picking up the gauntlet in a fight was not a conventional nice gesture, it was the only one suited here and she felt grateful for it.

"What else could I have done? I was punished to see my own actions reversed. The cruelest spectacle a man has ever had to witness in his old age. You were chasing me and repeating my mistakes, step by step, and I could do nothing to change that. Nothing but offer you this, what you now call leading you on."

"So—so you decided that being married to you would change how I feel?"

He smiled briefly, for she had once again managed to express a delicate matter in the most brutal, succinct way there was, though he could see that she has barely holding back tears. "If I thought our marriage was the universal cure for love? Oh, one can always trust you to voice these things. No, I did not. I only hoped it would bring you some measure of relief, if not happiness."

He appraised her in silence for a second; a range of emotions that would have puzzled Scarlett, had she been able to see them, playing in his eyes at the picture she presented. She was once again staring at her hands, biting her lip in an attempt to keep the tears from falling, or disguise them if they had already started—he couldn't really tell.

"Come here." She didn't move. "Please," he said again, and then he shifted himself on the sofa, draping a heavy arm over her shoulders to motion her towards him. She went reluctantly and he drew her closer till her head rested on his chest. He couldn't see her face, but he divined from the stiffness of her body that it wouldn't be long before she recoiled from him.

"Scarlett," he started again, gently, but firmly, his breath brushing against her hair, "I thought I could be free. There were two paths in front of me and I thought the decision was mine to make. The one that I fully intended to pursue was the path of an Epicure, living on the ruins of the empire, seizing everything life still had to offer and waiting for death to show its mercy—tasting tradition as the ultimate perversion, if you like. The other one was you. And it turned out I wasn't free to choose; it turned out no man is free in his old age, if he has a conscience—and everyone has to live with the consequences of their acts."

Scarlett was very still and very silent, obviously listening but offering no sign of understanding. He took a deep breath and concluded, "In the bluntest of terms, I chose you over alcoholism and whores. And it's not a decision I can—or want to undo. You, on the other hand, could have and no longer can. You lost that chance the moment you went to see Dr. Meade in Atlanta."

Like it had happened so many times in the past, with Ashley, the general, larger meaning of what Rhett had said eluded her. She could follow him in some aspects, but once she tried to grasp what had to be important and meaningful in his words, they seemed to suddenly slip through her fingers like grains of sand. But he said he had chosen her. In his twisted way he had said that, and he'd also claimed not to regret his decision. That had to mean something.

Her tears—for she had indeed been crying—subsided as her mind staggered on the brink of a new idea. He had chosen her. Why he'd done so was less important, what mattered was that he was still here and he had no intention to leave her. And if that was true, then his behavior, his attitude towards the baby could only stem from one source. He was afraid she would not want him now that she had the baby. He was afraid of losing her. He was afraid of losing her, her mind sang in triumph. It all made sense, his disappointment when she had been afraid to tell him, his silent wait these last weeks, his concern now. Oh, how wrong she'd been! And how easy it was to repair that mistake.

"But, Rhett, you are so wrong. I don't want that. I would never want that. I—"

She had raised her head from his chest and was looking at him with shining, feverish eyes. For a moment, he gave her a questioning gaze, but then a grim understanding seemed to light in his pupils and he nodded for her to continue.

"I want you," she started breathlessly. "I know we had a—a bad month, but it wasn't supposed to be like that. It doesn't have to be like that. We can be so happy, we can—"

She couldn't read the look on his face. There was a sort of semi-amused, incredulous resignation in his expression, coupled with something else. He seemed to wordlessly invite her to go on, and she didn't know what else to add. She wished she could say, "I love you", but those words seemed terribly out of place after all that had been said between them today.

So instead of that, she reached and kissed his cheek, in the semblance of a natural, familiar gesture. She didn't quite know what to expect, she had done it more tentatively than she would care to admit even to herself, but she exhaled in relief when Rhett's arms encircled her shoulders and kept her in place.

"I want you. I don't want anything else. I don't want to open any doors or—or whatever you said." She felt him smiling against her cheek at this rendition of his earlier words.

"Well, then, it seems we are on the same page with this," Rhett replied as he moved her to his lap; Scarlett, for the first time that day, not fighting his embrace. "Neither of us can open that door now, so why not make living here as comfortable as possible?"

He rested his chin on the top of her head, inhaling the light perfume of her hair, allowing the peace of this moment to wash over him. And then awareness of what exactly had triggered this relief, this satisfaction of holding Scarlett in his arms, reached his mind and he flinched. After all he'd told her; after making her see reason to a degree, though she was still deluded as to his motivations; after securing the victory—this. This rising inside him, the sickeningly, excruciatingly familiar feeling, resurrected from the dead to mock him, his words and his victory.

"I've missed you," he murmured more to himself than to her, with the dismayed tone of one who just found a hole in their favorite suit.

"What?" came Scarlett's voice, muffled in his shirt.

He'd missed her over these weeks. It had been so long since they had spent this much time in cold hostilities. He must have gotten used to the comfortable life of the last years, he told himself. His wife was just as useless for the emptiness inside him as liqueur and tobacco were, but, just like them, she had finally carved her way to his bloodstream.

"Nothing, I just—" He made a small, almost imperceptible pause before changing the subject smoothly. "There is something else we need to discuss, Scarlett. I suspect you missed some of the things I said earlier and I meant them. This thing of yours, lying to me, hiding things, especially about your health, has come at the wrong time. And it has to stop."

She stiffened against his shoulder, divided between irritation at his sudden tone of authority and the smallest twinge of guilt at the thought she still hadn't told him about her plan of traveling to England.

"What about you?" she started defensively. "Why is it always all right for you to lie, but, when I do it, all hell has to break loose?"

"Darling, that's because you're poor liar," he chuckled warmly. "But I suppose you do have a point here. How is this for a deal? You'll tell me the truth and I'll return the courtesy?"

"Yes," she breathed appeased, snuggling against his chest. "We'll do that."

And they were both lying.