There is a lot of borrowing in this chapter. Thank you, Margaret Mitchell, for your superlative original.


Scarlett was in Marietta when Rhett's urgent telegram came, two weeks after their late night confrontation. He had been absent that morning, and sick to her stomach at this repeat of sordid history, Scarlett had immediately packed up herself and both her children. With Prissy in tow, they had been in Marietta before nightfall. She, Scarlett, would do the leaving this time. She would not wait around again in an agony of anticipation for his return!

She had taken that breathless plunge into free fall. Twice before, Scarlett had teetered on the precipice. Shy and confused the morning after that tempestuous night, tentative and hopeful when he had at last returned home with Bonnie; both times she had been on the verge of something without understanding. Both times, he had disappointed her before she could even put a name to hope, an understanding to love. Only now she saw, truly, he had simply rescued her from herself without knowing it. This time she had moved forward, heedlessly, pursuing Rhett on open terrain - and into the abyss.

Scarlett could not stay in the same house as Rhett, not even the same city, and she felt ashamed because for the first time in her life she knew she had taken the coward's way out. She had run away rather than stay and face him in the full bloom of her shame.

The children were disgruntled and confused to be leaving home, leaving Uncle Rhett, so soon after their return. She hadn't fully teased out her own motivation in bringing them along. In the hotel suite, they were under foot, and she was no closer to nor more patient with them than she had been the last time she had made a concerted effort to get to know them, two years ago. But she couldn't leave Atlanta without them, the town already condemned her for her perceived lack of motherly sentiment or ability. It seemed like a fair blow to strike at Rhett, who after all had taken Bonnie with him when he had pulled this same nasty trick on her. Wade and Ella weren't his, but he loved them. It was the best, or worst, she could do.

Scarlett didn't know how long she would stay in Marietta. After Rhett's cruel words it seemed impossible that he would come to miss her as she had missed him. She wanted to hurt him, to tell the world all his failings as a husband, to get a little of her own back in what she felt was long-overdue sympathy from the judgmental old peahens of the Old Guard. Scarlett had no idea how she might even begin to accomplish any of this, but she would stay in Marietta until she was able to figure something out.

The telegram changed everything. "Mrs. Wilkes ill. Come home immediately." There was a train leaving for Atlanta in ten minutes and she caught it, carrying no baggage except her reticule and leaving Wade and Ella at the hotel with Prissy.

Atlanta was only twenty miles away but the train crawled interminably through the wet early autumn afternoon, stopping at every bypath for passengers. Twenty miles had hardly seemed like enough distance to put between herself and Rhett when she had first fled to Marietta, but on this agonizingly slow return every mile was painful. She wondered if Melanie was dying, and she swallowed back useless screams to urge the train on again at every halt.

Twilight had fallen when the train pulled into Atlanta and a light misting rain obscured the town. The gas street lamps glowed dully, blobs of yellow in the fog. Rhett was waiting for her at the depot with the carriage. The very sight of his face frightened her more than his telegram. He looked as bleak and pained as he had after Bonnie's death. Her heart seized at the sight, and she clenched her fists to restrain herself from reaching for him.

"She isn't —" she cried.

"No. She's still alive." Rhett assisted her into the carriage. "To Mrs. Wilkes' house and as fast as you can go," he ordered the coachman.

"Is it the baby?" Scarlett asked breathlessly, once they were seated in the carriage.

"She's dying," said Rhett and his strained voice sounded strange to her. "She wants to see you."

"Not Melly! Oh, not Melly! What's happened to her?"

"She's had a miscarriage."

"A— a-mis — but, Rhett, she can't be dying! I-I didn't and I—"

"She hasn't your strength. She's never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart," said Rhett. And to the coachman: "For God's sake, can't you drive faster?"

The frantic flight to Ivy Street passed in silence. Scarlett's chest ached but she would not, could not reach out to Rhett. Melanie's pregnancy touched too closely on the awful things he had said that night after supper. A miscarriage! But she, Scarlett, hadn't died! She had fallen down the stairs, broken ribs, and endured that trauma and the loss of her baby. Oh, but Melanie was so frail, she hadn't been strong since Beau's birth. Why had Melanie risked another baby!

The carriage rocked to a standstill in front of the flat little house and before Rhett could move, Scarlett had flung herself out of the carriage and stumbled onto the street. She flew up the front steps, across the porch and threw open the door. There, in the yellow lamplight were Ashley, Aunt Pitty and India. Scarlett thought, What's India doing here? Melanie told her never to set foot in this house again. The three rose at the sight of her, Aunt Pitty biting her trembling lips to still them, India staring at her, grief stricken and without hate. Ashley looked dull as a sleepwalker and, as he came to her and put his hand upon her arm, he spoke like a sleepwalker.

"She asked for you," he said. "She asked for you."

"Can I see her now?" She turned toward the closed door of Melanie's room.

"No. Dr. Meade is in there now. I'm glad you've come, Scarlett."

"I came as quickly as I could." Scarlett shed her bonnet and her cloak. "The train - She isn't really - Tell me, she's better, isn't she, Ashley? Speak to me! Don't look like that! She isn't really—"

"She kept asking for you," said Ashley and looked her in the eyes. And, in his eyes she saw the answer to her question. For a moment, her heart stood still and then a queer fear, stronger than anxiety, stronger than grief, began to beat in her breast. It can't be true, she thought vehemently, trying to push back the fear. Doctors make mistakes. I won't think it's true. I can't let myself think it's true. I'll scream if I do. I must think of something else.

"I don't believe it!" she cried stormily, looking into the three drawn faces as though defying them to contradict her. "Oh, Ashley, how could she?" How could you? she thought, and bit her lip.

Ashley's eyes awoke and were tormented.

"She was so happy. You know how she was about babies — how much she's wanted a little girl. And everything went so well until — and then for no reason at all —"

The door of Melanie's room opened quietly and Dr. Meade came out into the hall, shutting the door behind him. He stood for a moment, his gray beard sunk on his chest, and looked at the suddenly frozen four. His gaze fell last on Scarlett. As he came toward her, she saw that there was grief in his eyes and also dislike and contempt that flooded her frightened heart with guilt.

"So you finally got here," he said.

Before she could answer, Ashley started toward the closed door.

"Not you, yet," said the doctor. "She wants to speak to Scarlett."

...

When Scarlett emerged at last from Melanie's sickroom, Dr. Meade ushered in Pitty and India. Scarlett leaned her head against the wall, like a naughty child in a corner, and rubbed her aching throat. The promises she had made had burned her like so much bitter bile. Ashley! As long as she lived, she would have to look after Ashley. He would be just another child, clinging to her skirts. But Rhett - oh, no, he wouldn't see it that way. Rhett wouldn't understand. He'll probably want me to divorce him so I can marry Ashley. Marry him! I won't do it. It didn't matter that Rhett didn't love her, had never loved her. She would not let him go - least of all to tie herself to the millstone that would be Ashley Wilkes. Still, she would never be free of Ashley. It would be her cross to bear, the burden of caring for Ashley Wilkes her penance for the years she had spent trying by every art to take him away from Melanie.

Oh, Melanie, don't go, her heart begged in silence. Why, oh, why, had she not realized before this how much she loved and needed Melanie? "Melly is the only woman friend I ever had," she thought forlornly, "the only woman except Mother who really loved me. She's like Mother, too. Everyone who knew her has clung to her skirts."

Suddenly it was as if Ellen were lying behind that closed door, leaving the world for a second time. Suddenly she was standing at Tara again with the world about her ears, desolate with the knowledge that she could not face life without the terrible strength of the weak, the gentle, the tender hearted.

She stood in the hall, irresolute, frightened, and the glaring light of the fire in the sitting room threw tall dim shadows on the walls about her. The house was utterly still and the stillness soaked into her like a fine chill rain. Rhett! Had he come into the house? Oh dear God, she prayed, let him not have come in! She didn't want to face Rhett now, not yet.

Melanie had repeated the words she had whispered to Scarlett that dark night after Bonnie's death, only this time, she had begged them as a promise from Scarlett. "Captain Butler — be kind to him. He — loves you so." Rhett! She thought again. Oh, what fools we both are, Melly, she thought dismally. Scarlett knew the truth now, unshakably, and Melanie was wrong.

The door opened with sudden violence into the hall and Dr. Meade called with sharp urgency:

"Ashley! Quick!"

Ashley emerged from a room down the hall and the wind from his hurried passage rustled her skirts. Pitty and India had come back into the hall and were clinging to each other's hands, speechless. She looked at them, helpless, adrift, and knew they would be looking to her soon. There would be so much she would have to do. It couldn't be India, even if Melly had forgiven her. Pitty wasn't capable. It would be she, Scarlett, to see the undertaker and arrange the funeral and see that the house was clean and be there to talk to the people who wouldn't give her the time of day on the street, but wouldn't shrink from crying their grief out on her neck.

Scarlett looked at the dazed hurt faces of India and Pitty, and down at their joined hands. And who would hold her hand? Who would comfort her grief? Her hands fluttered helplessly, as if by some artful gesture she could make one of Rhett's crisply folded white handkerchiefs appear. Before India and Pitty could turn to her, she went swiftly by them to the front door, knowing if she stayed another minute her control would crack. She had to be alone. She would cry her grief out alone, and if she waited another minute her control - and her heart - would break.

She stepped onto the dark porch and closed the door behind her and the moist night air was cool upon her face. The rain had ceased and there was no sound except for the occasional drip of water from the eaves. She leaned her head against one of the uprights of the porch and prepared to cry, but no tears came. Rain dripped onto her upturned face.

The world was wrapped in a thick mist, a faintly chill mist that bore on its breath the smell of the dying year. All the houses across the street were dark except one, and the light from a lamp in the window, falling into the street, struggled feebly with the fog, golden particles floating in its rays. It was as if the whole world were enveloped in an unmoving blanket of grey smoke. And the whole world was still.

Rhett emerged from the fog. His broad outline was a shadow that parted the grey curtain until he stood below her at the base of the stairs. He looked up at her, but his shoulders were bent. He looked defeated.

"She is dead?"

The sound of the words, spoken plainly, stole her breath away. Scarlett nodded.

"Let's go home."

Scarlett descended the stairs, dazedly, and let Rhett take her arm and help her into the carriage. Their bodies faced each other but Scarlett turned her head to look out the small window.

"God rest her," Rhett said heavily as the carriage lurched into motion. "She was the only completely kind person I ever knew."

Scarlett made no answer, and they rode the rest of the way home in distant silence.

Back at the house, they parted, still without speaking. At the foot of the massive staircase, Rhett looked as if he wished to say something to her, but the moment passed quickly and she retreated to her bedroom. It wasn't very late, but she was exhausted. Tediously, she struggled with the buttons of her bodice and contorted herself awkwardly to tug and loosen her corset laces. She shed the garments on the floor, and traded them for an old, plain nightgown and wrapper. Not knowing how long she planned to stay away, she had brought most of her clothing - and all of her best clothing - with her to Marietta. The wrapper's plain neckline closely circled the base of her throat and its blue cotton fell in loose folds past her toes. Simple white embroidery decorated the hems of the sleeves and ran from top to bottom around the buttons. The frilly sleeves of her nightdress peeked out around her wrists.

At her vanity, Scarlett completed her toilette, cleaning her face and brushing out her hair. She knew she should try to sleep, but her heart still ached for Melanie. She needed to cry, but her eyes remained dry.

Rising to her door, Scarlett opened it a crack and looked carefully out into the hall. It was empty. She opened the door wider and stuck her head out, listening - the house was still and silent. She didn't know where Rhett was. Probably he wasn't even in the house anymore. Gathering up her trailing skirts, Scarlett hurried down the hall to the stairs, descended, and crossed into the dining room through the open door.

She stopped on the threshold. Rhett was seated before the table, slumped in his chair, and an unstoppered decanter stood before him, next to a half-empty glass. "Oh!" she exclaimed, her free hand at her throat.

Rhett looked up at her with dark eyes that were heavy with fatigue and there was no leaping light in them. He was sunken in his chair, the coat slung over the back and his white shirt wrinkled untidily against his waist. His cravat hung limply down his broad chest. His descent into the bottle had slowed, since her ill-considered plea for him to stay home more often, but the dissipation had not been completely recouped. His waist was thicker, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

"Come and sit down," he said. "You should have a drink."

Scarlett hesitated. She did not want to sit and drink with Rhett. There was no comfort in his bleak face. Their last conversation was still fresh in her mind. It beat black wings against her grief and her desire for solace, calling to her in a throb that said remember, remember what he said, remember what he did; remember.

"If I let you throw a glass at my head first, will you join me?" Despite herself, she smiled at his self-deprecating inquiry. He pushed back the chair beside him with his foot and, acquiescing, she sank into it.

Rhett filled a glass for her and topped off his own. He raised his glass and gestured for her to do the same.

"To Melanie," he said, in a serious murmur. "She was a very great lady." Scarlett clapped her free hand over her mouth and swallowed a sob before gulping a sip of the brandy. Rhett drank and set his own glass down. His somber gaze went past her and in his eyes was the same look she had seen in the light of the flames the night Atlanta fell, when he told her he was going off with the retreating army—the surprise of a man who knows himself utterly, yet discovers in himself unexpected loyalties and emotions.

Their eyes met, and the moment had passed. His face was strange and impenetrable again. Scarlett felt her shoulders tense as she waited for a blow.

"Were you able to speak with her?" Rhett asked, almost kindly. Scarlett dropped her eyes to her glass and nodded. "What did she say?"

Scarlett swallowed the temptation to tell Rhett what Melanie had said about him. He had made himself clear. "She asked me to look after Ashley." Her voice was bitter.

Rhett took a drink. "It's convenient to have the first wife's permission, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" Scarlett looked up, but now Rhett was looking away, his eyes on the window behind them.

"I think my meaning's plain enough. Miss Melly is dead. You certainly have all the evidence you want to divorce me and—"

"No!" Scarlett cried, leaning close to him. "Don't - how can you say such things!"

Avoiding her burning eyes, Rhett turned back to the table. The silence was broken by an irrhythmic clatter. Scarlett looked down and saw Rhett's hand shaking violently as he tried to set his empty glass on the table. Before she could examine the impulse, Scarlett reached out to touch him, but Rhett was faster. He grabbed her wrist in a grip that hurt.

"You don't want to divorce me?"

"Rhett—"

"Answer me!" He ground out, shaking her arm.

"No! I won't give you the satisfaction."

He released her wrist suddenly, and his cool voice was again emotionless. "Is that it? You believe - you know - that I want a divorce, so you will refuse me just to be perverse?"

"I - yes. No. I don't have to explain myself to you."

The hand Rhett placed under her chin trembled against her soft skin. He quietly turned her face up to the light and looked for an intent moment into her eyes. She looked up at him, praying that he wouldn't read the truth in her face.

Whatever Rhett had seen, his next actions shocked her utterly. In the space of one breath, he had slid from his chair to kneel before her, his head in her lap and his arms and hands were clutching her in a frantic grasp that hurt her. He was shaking. She wrapped her hands around the arms of her chair to keep herself from giving in to the urge to touch him, to bend over his head and embrace his shoulders and draw him up to her and—

She would not move until she understood. She sat, rigid, her muscles growing sore as minutes passed in silence. At last, Rhett pulled his head back, though his grip did not relent.

"I saw Ashley today," he said, surprising her and angering her again. She began to splutter a retort and he lifted one hand to forestall her protest. "I saw the face of a man who had lost everything he loves in the world. Scarlett, I—" Rhett dropped his hand and clung to her again, both of his arms like iron bars along her thighs. Through the thin cotton of her nightgown and her wrapper she could feel his heat. "I had planned to leave you. Please, don't interrupt, I need to tell you—"

"After Bonnie died, what was there to bind me to you, or you to me? I did love you, Scarlett. I loved you when I married you. I took the chance - I thought Ashley would fade out of your mind. But he was always between us. It drove me crazy. But then, there was Bonnie. It was a blessing that I could take the love you didn't want and give it to her. When she went..."

"I thought it was over, then. You didn't love me. I nearly convinced myself that my love for you was gone, worn out against Ashley Wilkes and your insane obstinacy that makes you hold on like a bulldog to anything you think you want. I had gambled on you, and lost. I had lost Bonnie. The only sane response I could conceive was to go away."

Rhett's fingers pressed into her hips painfully, but his voice hypnotized her. The light was coming back into his eyes, leaping hotly and mesmerizing her gaze.

"You almost died after your accident, Scarlett. When I saw Ashley today, I saw myself. I saw what I would have been if you had died. And I knew my plans for a farce. I thought I couldn't risk my heart a third time. I was - mistaken. Scarlett," he shook her, needlessly, for he had her complete, utterly rapt attention, "do you remember what you asked me before you left?"

Did she remember! She wished she could forget. Under his uncompromising gaze, she felt herself nod almost against her will. The light in his eyes twisted and leapt.

"It would change everything, my baby, if you loved me." Scarlett didn't say anything. Rhett looked disappointed, but he pressed on. "It would have killed me if you had died when you lost our baby. How could I willingly give you up? I couldn't - I can't - not if you feel—"

Rhett's chest pressed into her knees as he drew a deep breath. He studied her, contained, still. Then he released her legs and stood. He crossed lightly to the window and looked out, away from her.

"If you didn't mean it, I'll go away. You don't have to hide out in Marietta. I'll leave tomorrow, I'll go to my mother's in Charleston. You can bring Wade and Ella home and be well shot of me. If you want a divorce, I won't contest."

"Tell me," Scarlett said abruptly. She twisted around in the chair to look at Rhett. Where she gripped it, her knuckles were stark white.

Rhett looked back at her, his dark brows knit together in confusion. Then his face relaxed. He looked bland and unconcerned, but for once she noticed his hands clenching into fists before he buried them in his trouser pockets.

"I love you," Rhett said, his voice as cool and disinterested as if they were discussing a change to the week's menus. His demeanor was bizarrely at odds with his declaration, but it was enough.

"Rhett," she whispered. She stumbled over the long hem of her wrapper in her haste to rise, and Rhett caught her before she could take more than two steps. His arms went around her waist and he lifted her up off her feet, pulling her hard against his chest. She felt hot tears spilling down her face as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and when she kissed him, his cheeks were also wet. Scarlett covered his face with kisses, whispering "I love you" between each one. She didn't even stop when Rhett captured her mouth with his own, but said it one last time, smiling against his lips.

"I love you."

Their tears mingled as they kissed, until a sob tore through her. Scarlett buried her face in Rhett's neck and he sank into a chair, holding her across his lap. His hands were soothing on her back as she cried, at last, for Melanie. Her grief poured out, freed by his confession. It was as if the restraint that had dammed up her feelings for him had also constrained her ability to mourn. Released by Rhett's words, grief tumbled out on the heels of love.

Rhett buried his face against her head, and she felt his own tears dampening her hair. She pressed the back of his head in both her palms. He kissed her again, and she kissed him back. Grief began to give way before an urgent need to be close to Rhett. Melanie was gone, Bonnie was gone, but they were still here - they were alive.

They had lost so much. They had lost time - years apart, even in marriage. She had lost innocence, and the lightheartedness of youth that would never be restored. They had lost Bonnie, their beautiful daughter, and the baby they would never know. But somehow, impossibly, they had found each other at the end.

"I love you," Rhett Butler whispered as he kissed his wife's throat. "I love you, Scarlett."


A/N: My gratitude to MM for her characters and, in this particular chapter, an especially heavy debt to her text in Chapters 61, 62, and 63 (and one small lift from 56). Truly I could have used a lot more of Chapter 61 to write this, but that would be shoddy effort and an uncomfortable amount of "borrowing." So I have picked and chosen and cut it down, but imagine, if you will, that everything MM wrote still happens between the lines (except what contradicts my altered version, such as Scarlett not knowing Melanie was pregnant, and the realizations about Ashley which she has already had - although some of the depth of understanding she acquired at this point in the original would not be contradictory).

This story is complete. I do not plan to elaborate on the ending. Thank you for reading and reviewing!