A loud banging jolted them from sleep the next morning. The clanging and blasting noises made Rhett flinch and jerk his head up. For a brief, confused second, he was back in the war, in the artillery, in the rifle pits. He didn't often think of that time, even in dreams, and the disassociation was even more jarring than the noisy interruption to sleep. It made his heart thud heavily in his chest.
He forced his breathing to slow as Scarlett stretched languorously along his side, rubbing her cheek against his chest. Her hair caught and slid along on his arm, a light dragging sensation that curled his toes.
With another loud bang from beyond the bedroom door, Scarlett sat up abruptly. The sheets clung unevenly to her skin, sliding slowly down her side while she blinked, and her eyes darted around the room.
"Christmas," she said, stupidly, staring at the door. Rhett chuckled and pushed himself up.
"Christmas," he repeated, then kissed her softly. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Butler."
They heard a sparking, fizzy noise through the window, drifting up from the garden. Scarlett pushed him away. "Rhett, do go and make sure they don't burn the house down with those firecrackers? I don't know where they get them." He knew, but he wasn't about to tell her that he made sure Pork purchased them every year.
Rhett dressed quickly and casually in trousers, a shirt, and a dark blue smoking jacket. He slid his feet into plush house slippers - a gift from a Christmas past. He threw open the door and Bonnie squealed, "Daddy!" while Scarlett shrieked and ducked under the covers. "Rhett!"
He laughed and passed into the hall, closing the door behind him. Bonnie sat against the far wall in her nightgown and robe, with a pot in one hand and wooden spoon in the other.
"Good morning, my little drummer girl. Were you sent to wake us up?" Bonnie grinned.
"It's Christmas!"
"So it is, my dear. Do you want to go see the fireworks?"
"Yes!" Bonnie dropped her noisemakers and lifted her arms. Rhett swooped her up high above his head then carried her, shrieking with laughter, down the stairs and out to the garden.
By the time the small fireworks display was over, Scarlett had arrived out on the veranda. She kissed the tops of Wade's and Ella's heads, and accepted the reaching, squirming Bonnie from Rhett's arms.
"That was quite the display, son!" praised Rhett, clapping Wade manfully on the shoulder.
"Thank you, sir," Wade beamed. "Me and Pork -" But Ella cut him off, already eager for the next morning tradition.
"Mama, Uncle Rhett, oh can't we open gifts?"
"Gifts?" chuckled Rhett. "I don't know, are there any gifts, Scarlett?"
"Hmm," she hummed, swaying with Bonnie. "Why I'm not sure I saw any."
Mother - Mama - Uncle Rhett - Daddy! came the indignant chorus. Bonnie pressed her small pudgy hands on Scarlett's shoulders and pushed herself back.
"Mama I want my presents!"
Scarlett set her down. "You'd better go and see if you have any, then."
Wade's and Ella's longer legs outpaced Bonnie easily as the trio rushed through the house. Rhett wrapped his arm around Scarlett and they followed, listening to Bonnie's exhortations after her older siblings.
"Don't touch my presents! I'm going to tell Daddy!"
Pausing just outside the parlor, Rhett kissed his wife and whispered against her mouth, "Merry Christmas." He felt her lips smile against his.
The room was already in chaos as the children moved eagerly from tree to mantel. Rhett unhooked their stockings and handed them out, while Scarlett seated herself on a low velvet hassock set near the tree. Rhett sat near her on the matching chair. She handed the brightly wrapped parcels around to each child. There were new dolls for both girls, a shiny regiment of tin soldiers for Wade; and roller skates for all three to use at the roller rink. The emptied stockings each yielded a mountain of sweets, and a small orange from each toe.
Scarlett kept one long, shallow present on her lap, Rhett's name in graceful script on the tag. She ducked her head when she handed him the small parcel. He unwrapped a long gold frame with a photograph of each of the three children. Their names were scripted in elegant swags below each picture. He brought his head down to hers and kissed her cheek, feeling the heat of a blush under his lips. "Thank you, Scarlett," he murmured against her hot skin.
Rhett reached behind her and pulled the small green and gold box he had hung the night before off the tree. He held it out and she accepted it in her hand. Scarlett rested her hand in her lap and her fingers twitched over the ribbons, but stalled suddenly, then moved to circle her wrist, rubbing distractedly. She looked up at him, and he was astonished to see her clear eyes looking glazed, as if with a film of tears. The crease of a frown divided her forehead as it had late the previous night, but in the bright Christmas morning sunlight he could see confusion clearly in her eyes. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly once, then she leaned forward abruptly, crowding him, and kissed him.
"I love you," Scarlett whispered, in a rush of air across his mouth. Rhett pulled back in stunned abruptness and caught a glimpse of her burning cheeks before she looked away, her hair falling forward to hide her downturned face. The tumult of the children seemed to fade for an instant. He could hear the hoarse sound of his own breathing, counterpoint to Scarlett's quick, almost panting breaths.
The noise of Christmas morning washed back over him. Rhett carefully set the framed photographs down under the tree, then reached both arms around Scarlett's waist and hauled her off the hassock and into his lap. She squirmed, without much energy, and shoved her hands gently against his arms in weak protest.
"Rhett, stop. I'm sorry - please, let's just have Christmas - just never mind - forget -"
She was babbling nervously, incomplete sentences. He turned her sideways, and her slippered feet slid against the leg of the chair. He craned his neck to look at her, and had to reach a hand up to grasp her chin when she twisted her head away. Her eyes were luminous in the bright sunlight streaming through the opened drapes, light that caught and glittered in the tears pricking her thick lashes. He swiped them clean with his thumb, then pressed a soft kiss to her mouth.
"I've always loved you, Scarlett."
They both went still a moment, then he pulled away, seeking her gaze. Slowly, the corners of her mouth lifted in a smile that seemed, for an instant, shy.
Then she batted her eyelashes at him with the unerring instinct of the coquette, and Rhett roared with laughter and hugged her tight. Wade, Ella, and Bonnie, with sticky fingers and sugar-filled mouths, paused in the comparison of their bounty and looked up from the mountains of sweets they had emptied from their stockings.
As he looked about him, that Christmas of 1871, the happiest Christmas the state had known in over ten years, life glowed with warmth and grace, and love.
...
"Yet what I can I give Him, give my heart" - Christina Rossetti