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

Forward: I have a tendency to get ahead of myself or to post things that haven't been completely thought through. I want to thank you all for caring enough about this story to speak plainly, because I threw something in there that made absolutely no sense. I can't say that what I've done here necessarily fixes it. It's certainly nothing like what I probably should have done, but I hope this will provide an improvement and a little closure for a certain character who was never destined for long life in this world.

His mother was overjoyed to see him. "Your letters have been lovely, but it's not the same as having my own boy in my home," she said. "We haven't gone so long without seeing you since the war."

"Mother mine," he said. "I'm so glad to see you."

"Go freshen up and come down. We have various things that are cool and delicious to eat on such a hot day."

He did as told, placing the teacup on a bookshelf in his bedroom. It looked lonely without the saucer, just as Father Halloran had suggested. Yet he had only brought the one piece, perhaps to remind himself and Scarlett, if she noticed, that they would be reunited.

He went downstairs in an odd mood, glad to be in his mother's house, but not feeling quite as at home as in times past. He wasn't here to refresh his palate this time; this was a working trip. As always, it was just Rosalyn and Rhett for this one meal, as they shared the news of Atlanta.

"Scarlett writes that you wanted her to stop running her cotton gin but it nearly ended in disaster. Did it really?"

"We interviewed a man who, it turns out, was trying to find a way to get quick money. He made a play of trying to attack Scarlett, hoping that she would pay him to leave, but he ended up in jail instead."

"You make quite a romantic hero, protecting her."

"That was before she spent a week telling me that she told me so."

"Whatever happened to that awful man?"

Rhett closed his eyes, remembering the argument with Scarlett that lasted several days. "I won't be able to sleep at night, wondering if they're going to let him out of jail," she had pointed out. She wasn't wrong. He had quickly realized he cared enough about her that he couldn't leave until it was somehow resolved.

He cleared his throat and told his mother, "It turns out that he might be wanted for crimes in other states. I think he was extradited to Arizona first on a charge of stealing a railroad payroll. He certainly wasn't at all who he said he was." Rhett was very busy with his food. The salad made from garden greens was quite refreshing.

"How did they figure that out?"

"I happened to recall that it was a crime that hadn't been solved, and asked the sheriff if this man looked like him."

"And did he?"

"There was a very close resemblance to the wanted poster."

"How much did that poster look like you?"

Rhett laid his fork down silently and looked up at his mother. "Are you accusing me of armed robbery and murder?"

"I never knew what to think," she said quietly. "I never knew what you might have been driven to do. You were so young, although not as defenseless as Thomas would have been."

He shook his head. "Not that. Never that, mother. Except for the war, any man I have killed was directly trying to kill me first."

Rhett watched his mother blink back tears. "I'd always hoped that it was so. I've always wanted to think of you as a good boy, under it all."

He took his mother's hand and kissed it with a sigh. "Not a very good boy at all, Mother, but better than that. Much better than that, I hope."

A chill ran over Rosalyn. It really wasn't as big a distinction good and evil as a mother would hope. She saw that Rhett knew it. "And so this man, when they get him to Arizona and realize it wasn't him? Or will he be executed whether he's the right man or not?"

"I'm hoping they discover who he really is by then. I've hired some men from Pinkerton's to investigate quietly. When they interviewed him at the jail, they realized this wasn't the first time he tried to commit terrible crimes. If he's not the man from the Arizona heist, there's sure to be something else."

"And what does Scarlett think about all of this?"

"She's not happy with me leaving so soon after something like that happened, but at least she has no fear where that man is concerned, and she's the least defenseless woman I know."

"That's no excuse, Rhett, to treat her so is ungentlemanly."

"She's long since unsexed herself, mother."

Rosalyn stood up at that and slammed her hand on the table. "To think I should live to hear my own son say such a thing, and about his own wife…"

"Mother, it's commonly known around Atlanta."

"About a woman living under the protection of your name, Rhett. Doesn't that mean anything to you? She's your wife."

"My wife who's chosen not to live as most of the hypocritical ladies in Atlanta live."

"You sound proud of that."

"I always was."

"That doesn't mean that she wouldn't welcome a little kindness and protection from her own husband of all people!"

"She doesn't want to be coddled!"

"Not at all? Do you really believe that?"

"Shes—" Trying hard to be what he wanted. It echoed in his ears from what Father Halloran said. "I promised Rosemary I'd come back."

"It won't take very long to resolve your business with her."

Rhett rolled his eyes. "Do you want me to take the evening train tonight?"

Rosalyn calmly set dishes back on the serving tray. "You needn't leave immediately, dear, but I don't think you need to stay for very long. Are you happy with Scarlett?"

"We've had moments where I'm absolutely sure I'm crazy to ever leave her side."

"So why are you here?"

"There are also moments I want to wring her neck."

"That's called marriage, dear."

"It's also called suffocation."

"Just don't wreck it. There might come a time when instead of suffocation it feels like a comfortable blanket."

Rosemary breezed through the house at that point, carrying a satchel with papers trying to escape. "Brother-mine! Where have you been?"

"With his wife and family, where he should be."

"Isn't little Gerald such a darling? Scarlett wrote that he says 'Papa' until she wants to cry."

"I've seen it happen," said Rhett.

"It doesn't seem fair that Scarlett should do all of the mothering and fathering for a full year and you swoop in and suddenly you are all he wants."

"Perhaps he was making up for lost time." Rhett was getting a little irritated.

"The time you lost, wandering around as though you didn't have a perfectly good family and home."

"I needed to see different things, Rosemary."

"Whatever you saw was nothing to what Scarlett went through."

"Scarlett and I had an agreement. I don't deny that it might have been a little short-sighted to leave as I did, but she and I both agreed that I would take that trip."

"You agreed, brother dear. Scarlett was left to deal with the results of your poor decisions."

"Which brings me to another point." Rhett glared at his mother. "Whatever happened to put such ideas in Pauline and Eulalie's heads?"

Rosalyn shook her head. "We have no idea, Rhett, and once I knew what happened, I couldn't visit them any longer. I was just sick about it."

Rosemary shook her head. "I was with her when she went to visit them last, and they were as sweet as can be. They were terribly amused about something, and then the stories came out as soon as Scarlett was back in Atlanta."

Rosalyn patted Rhett's hand. "Was there permanent damage?"

"I think we've fixed it, but of course Scarlett is capable of making it worse."

Rosemary shook her head. "I don't think she is, any more."

Rhett looked at his sister and agreed with her. "You're right, I don't think she is, more's the pity."

"Is there a problem?" asked Rosalyn.

"She's so different now. It's not just the attack. She's lost some of that fire."

"Then why are you here?"

"I can't fix her life. I need to deal with my own."

Rosalyn frowned at him. "I think you'd find more of your own problems solved if you helped her more often with hers."

Thinking of all the things that he'd ever done with Scarlett, his mother might have been right. Some of his favorite times with her had been discussing her businesses and her little problems and what she planned to do with them. She had such interesting ways of looking at things that there was always a delightful surprise.

Rosemary waited until the meal had been cleared away before covering the dining table with papers and an updated map of Butler's Point. "It doesn't matter what we grow, they need it all. I propose that we go back to rice to start with, since we're set up for that on at least part of the property. These sections here," she put salt shakers on them, "still have functional irrigation systems and could be ready within a week or two."

Rhett looked at it with interest, and thought of Scarlett's excitement on his behalf. She wanted him to have the attachment to something in the same way she had Tara. He would never feel that way, but there was still something exciting about this. "Let's draw up a schedule."

Rosemary looked through her satchel and pulled out a piece of paper, setting it in front of her brother. "Here we are," she said.

He glanced through it. "We'll be harvesting at the same time as the cotton."

"Is that a problem?"

"I don't know yet."

"I made some improvements. Do you want to come see?"

Later in his bedroom, Rhett found a piece of paper and started a note to his wife. He stumbled over the salutation. He couldn't decide what to call her and crossed it out three times. The teacup caught his eye. He took a new piece of paper and wrote the date on the top, and then left some space to decide how to call her.

He started by assuring her that he had arrived in Charleston in good health and had found his family in good health as well. He hoped that everyone he left behind was likewise. He knew she would be interested in the rice plantation, and so he described all that he was planning to do based on Rosemary's recommendations and outlined a couple of things he hadn't decided yet. He wondered if she would respond with any opinions. He told her that he thought warmly of their last moments together. He thought of them now. She had waked before he did and brought him breakfast in bed. She hadn't said a word in anger or annoyance; she'd just wished him safe travel and success in the business he would do in Charleston. He finished off with "Cordially" and decided that under the circumstances he should start the letter with "My dear Scarlett." He paused before sealing it. Would she know yet about a baby? Should he mention it? She told him to never say anything until she knew for sure, so he said nothing.

Rhett and Rosemary took the little sail boat out in the early morning and walked along the pathways. The paths were the first thing he noticed. They'd been cleared and straightened almost to their previous standard. The fields were looking good, too. The rice that had been growing was gone now. "Was there anything worth having in the rice?" he asked.

"It had re-seeded itself a few times, as you know. We got some product out of it, but it wasn't a proper harvest by any standard."

They continued along to where the house had been. The burned remains were now gone, and the foundation had been cleared and repaired. Several of the outbuildings had been rebuilt. "We started with the buildings for storing our tools, seed, and other materials," she said.

He nodded his head. "You did all this with the money I sent you?"

She shrugged. "We've received two years' worth of income from that mine, and there were people willing to help in exchange for what rice was in that field."

"Was there much?"

She shrugged again. "It will be a substantial addition to their tables this winter. I was able to pay most of them in a combination of cash and rice, so I think they're better off than without the work."

"Will they come in the spring?"

"I believe they will."

"I have other funds I can direct here. Do you want to work on the house during the winter?"

"Do you mind? It wouldn't directly contribute to the property."

"Believe it or not, letters travel from Charleston to Atlanta as often as they go the other way around. Would the house be appreciated as a wedding present?"

She bumped into his shoulder. "Rhett… he hasn't proposed."

"Does he have any interest in farming rice? Francis, right?"

"Yes, Francis, and he's been all over the property with me. Some of the ideas here are actually his. He wants to oversee it."

Rhett peeked into an old root cellar. "I don't think overseeing will be the way it was. The old plantation system is gone."

"Whatever it's called, he'd like a chance to run it next year, from preparing to plant until setting the fields to rest for the winter. We've discussed everything at length and I believe he knows how every step of it's done. His father was an overseer out by Mount Pleasant."

"How did you meet?"

"Scarlett was right to start at the Veteran's Home. No one there could really help me, but they all knew someone who might know something and after about a month and a half of meeting with a network of friends of friends, I came across Francis and I knew instantly that he knew what we were talking about. He understood the language, you see. When I brought him out to our place, he jumped right in and did everything along with the workers."

"And how did the other part happen?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean. There hasn't been any other part."

"Mother says the two of you spent half the year mooning over each other in her parlor."

Rosemary sighed heavily. "It's all been unspoken. It's hardly enough to inspire a girl to check on the contents of her hope chest."

"When can I meet him?"

"Tomorrow, I think. He usually comes in the late morning."

"Does Francis have a last name?"

"Of course. It's Calhoun."

"Like Senator Calhoun?"

"I understand that they're kin but nothing to presume upon."

"Very well, I'll speak with him tomorrow."

Rhett wrote several notes to himself when they got back to the Battery. There were several things that could still be done to winterize the fields they wanted to plant next spring. There were several things to do if a new house was to be built. He looked through Rosemary's papers to see if she'd had an architect out at the place. He found drawings for the foundation but nothing else. He smiled to himself. She probably had the whole house drawn up but didn't want to show him yet. There was time.

He decided there was a joke on himself somewhere. Father Halloran had advised him without saying it in so many words to involve himself in building something, but it appeared that what he'd be building would be a home for someone else.

The next day he went back over his notes, wrote a few new ones, and looked over the other business he needed to work on in town. At eleven, Rosemary came to the door of the study and bounced up and down oddly.

"Calm down Rosemary. Is he here?"

She nodded her head several times, apparently unable to speak.

"Send him in."

Rhett liked Francis Calhoun instantly, both as someone to bring life to the plantation again and as a potential suitor for Rosemary. He was tall with sandy blond hair and blue eyes, which Rhett was sure helped his cause with any young lady of his acquaintance. He was also self-contained and sure of himself without being full of himself. Appearances could be deceiving, however. Rhett considered the case of Mr. Irving, who had tried to rape Scarlett.

They discussed rice planting generally and then more and more specifically. Rhett himself had done quite a few of the jobs involved, but as the son of the plantation was only allowed to play along and not at all after he turned sixteen and went to West Point. It became clear that Francis Calhoun could teach him quite a bit.

He pulled out his papers and listened as Francis spoke, adding notes here and there. Francis clearly understood nuances that Rhett did not. Finally, he stood up and reached a hand across the desk. "You have a job if you want it."

Francis stood and reached his own hand, shaking Rhett's seriously. "I'd be happy to work with you, Captain Butler."

"From what I've been hearing, there's more for us to discuss."

Francis blushed and mumbled, "I don't know if I dare."

Rhett stood and took two glasses from a shelf over the desk. "This conversation requires whisky." He opened a decanter. He poured two generous helpings and considered how to make Francis Calhoun, son of overseers, feel welcome. "Did Rosemary tell you about our family?"

"You're the Butlers of Charleston."

"Yes, but Rosemary's and my grandfather was—to put it bluntly—a pirate. He became respectable after he made his money. One could say my privateering days were a throwback to him. You will also no doubt know that very few genteel houses in Charleston will invite me into their homes?" Francis nodded and Rhett continued, "And of course, there is my wife's family."

"She's related to the Robillard sisters, right?"

"Indeed. They are her mother's sisters. But her father was an Irish peasant who won his plantation, a farm really, in a hand of poker."

"I didn't realize."

"Not many recall the man as he was. I only met him once and found him to be a great gentleman, for all that he was completely outclassed by his wife and eldest daughter."

"I see."

"My wife's sister is married to a Georgia cracker who before the war might have aspired to be an overseer, but more likely would have lived on a few small acres he owned. He appears to be a man of no consequence until he suddenly knows exactly what to do to keep the farm going or what to say to keep Scarlett from killing her sister. Scarlett herself is quite the rising businesswoman in Atlanta, which when combined to her marriage to me has cost her many friends she might have had otherwise.

"Mister Calhoun, it's not the world it used to be. I'm not saying it's better or worse, but if you're in love with my sister, your status in the world that was as overseer makes no difference to any of us, as long as you take proper care of your family and make her as happy as the life you choose allows."

Francis nodded his head and thanked Rhett for his candor. Rhett sat back and damned himself for his hypocrisy. Who was he to warn of making wives happy when he himself had gone almost out of his way to make his wife miserable?

The only way to keep his wife happy would be to make himself miserable. How was a person to negotiate that? The teacup might have had the answer, but Rhett didn't know how to read it. The more he stared at it, the more he did realize he was almost done with his work in Charleston.

A/N: I hope I've redeemed my self, at least slightly. Thank you so very much to the readers and reviewers, including Guest 1 & 2 & 3, Melody-Rose-20, Romabeachgirl1981, abbygale94, Kinderby, Leafhuntress, gumper, Truckee Gal, gabyhyatt, kanga85, and Florausten.