AN: Omg guys those last reviews were SO DAMN nice. I am sorry if anyone didn't enjoy the super short little chapters, but I didn't want to post them together or upload them together because that isn't how they come to me/I write them. I definitely do not expect you all to review for each one or read them as soon as they come out.

Again thank you so much for the reviews! They were such a nice start to my day.

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Part Eight

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Rhett Butler was astonished one day to realize that he had only been home for three weeks. While there was a delightful newness of it all, there was also a deep sense of familiarity. The gentle reminder that this is what their life should have been like from the start.

He had a lot of time to think about the past and what had gone wrong. Oh people talked about how much busier the world was getting, but he imagined a world when backbreaking labor and fear of surviving had been the much busier time. When your mind was so filled you couldn't review the past and imagine a future. Then again much of his marriage to Scarlett had seemed like fight for survival.

Wade's words rung true in his mind. He had done his best to give Scarlett and Bonnie everything. It had been a spectacular failure with both. Bonnie with bedtimes and rules and order. Oh she already looked at them for praise now knowing she did something right. The two-year-old was hardly as behaved as her nearly five year old sister, but she looked to Ella constantly for what she should do. Meltdowns still occurred, but they resolved with time and not giving in. The night terrors that had been a constant in their lives had been few and far between, the last one Ella had soothed before he had even reached the room. An orderly and structured life with rules had been the safety she was missing, not his ever present arms and boundless toys.

Oh he had made a spectacular mess of his first years of fatherhood.

But Wade now rode beside him twice a week at the stable and told him of his studies and his frustrations with his little sisters.

Ella put on plays for him with her dolls and ran to him every time he entered a room.

Bonnie was happy, not a desperate attempt at giving her everything happy with the highs and lows that accompanied that. She was simply happy.

As for Scarlett, he recognized now that you couldn't buy love.

Odd. He had been her friend. Perhaps if he had tried to remember that instead of trying to become her love.

Then again he wouldn't have Bonnie.

He had only made cursory attempts at avoiding making a child with his wife. He was a knowledgeable man, he could have done better and chosen not to. He had unconsciously done everything he could to make her his completely. She had been completely submerged those first two years.

He hadn't realized how much he missed making her laugh.

How much he missed her looking at him for comfort, for protection.

He had been so filled with anger and self-pity.

He had thrown away her mind.

She had given him her body and mind and he discarded it all when he realized he would never have her heart. It was almost unusually cruel how quickly she gave it back to him, as if it had always been right there, right there for the taking if he had ever been brave enough to try.

She talked about the mills and store.

She talked about how Wade wanted to go to Harvard and she blamed it all on Uncle Peter and Melly.

She talked about how she missed country air but would likely commit murder if left with Suellen for long.

Oh he still longed for her heart.

But it was there just as it had been on the day he proposed.

On the day he found out she was pregnant.

On the day he watched a house full of people look at him with pity as she greeted them in that red dress.

He wanted her. Whatever form or part of her he could get. He wanted her.

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"It's odd," Scarlett said sitting at her vanity with a hand on her stomach, her 100 strokes forgotten by the fluttering of their baby. "Feeling him inside, but not outside, it almost makes me feel a little crazy like I'm imagining it."

"Like you'd eaten one too many cream puff?" Rhett sat sipping a brandy as he watched Scarlett perform her nightly ritual. He couldn't remember why he had ever taken to leaving their house so often, why he hadn't kicked down the door to her bedroom after she locked it, hell he couldn't figure out why he hadn't checked to see if she actually locked it.

"I didn't eat that many, I could barely get to them before the children."

Rhett laughed recalling Bonnie crawling across the table.

"You know what else I'd like to feel in me Rhett?"

"What now Scarlett?"

"You."

"Whoever taught you such vulgar language Mrs. Butler, I owe him a drink," he threw back the rest of his glass and went to join his wife on her bench.

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Rhett was aware of the moment the talk began to start heavily again, likely tied to how quickly Scarlett was beginning to show. The way Melly positioned herself next to Scarlett every time they were out in the evening.

The way she came over to accompany Scarlett when she took Ella and Bonnie for walks during the week while Rhett was riding with the boys after school.

He could see people when he was in town, talking softly amongst themselves, quickly glancing in his direction and then away. The pitying, mocking or self-righteous look in their eyes.

Scarlett didn't say a word, although Rhett did note her formalwear was getting rather ornate for weekday dinners. While they didn't accept all invitations, she accepted more than she refused. They attended the theater and danced with crowds looking on. She attended church with them, but never hid the bored expression on her face or the smug look as people saw them with the children.

His wife was vain, if she was forced to attend church, the children were pristine as if they were sitting for a portrait. Wade's wavy brown hair with golden highlights, already nearing his mother's height, Bonnie and Ella with Scarlett's gentle reminders to hold their sister's hand and her husband, the wealthy fool. Oh they looked ideal.

In weak moments, they would get him. He would be filled with a self-loathing that rivaled the night of Ashley's birthday.

Then there were the moments right after they returned with the girls from their walk, when it didn't matter how many looks he had encountered during their walk. He would calmly follow Scarlett upstairs, undo her dress and then corset and then rub his hands along everywhere it had touched her skin and all the surrounding skin and redress his wife in new dress. Never failing to kiss her or hold his hand against where their child lay.

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"Captain Butler," Melly said rushing towards him as he came in the door, stopping her pacing the foyer. He had left the boys outside to brush down his horse after their excursion at the stable.

"Miss Melly?" Rhett felt his heart plummet. He had known it was too good to last, he had known it never could. His heart tore at the thought of his lost child, of losing Scarlett now that his child couldn't hold her heart. Then the fear of losing Scarlett, it would be one thing to lose the tether that held her to him, it would be another entirely to lose her, to be the reason she was gone from the world. "Scarlett," his hands grasped around her arms, likely leaving bruises, he could feel nothing in his desperate moments.

"Dr. Meade is with her."

He took the stairs two at a time as he bounded up them, nearly knocking over the older gentleman outside of her room. "Scarlett?"

"Perfectly fine," the doctor nodded, "the baby as well. Miss Melly was overly cautious. Scarlett got a little lightheaded when she returned from their walk. Not surprising given her condition and its been remarkably humid this season. I suggest you try getting her to not overexert herself."

Rhett gave the doctor a look.

"Good luck," the doctor nodded at him as Rhett opened the door to their room.

"I was hoping you would take longer to return home after your ride," Scarlett greeted her husband from the bed.

"I imagine you were," Rhett approached his wife.

"We're perfectly fine," Scarlett said with a hand on her stomach.

"Dr. Meade told me," Rhett placed a hand on her stomach as well.

"I swear this baby had taken up residency in my lungs, none of the other children were like this."

"Scarlett-"

"Rhett do not say a single word about going out without a corset. If you think they talk about me now…" Scarlett paused, "Do not even think I am going to stay in this house for next 5 months, I will lose my mind Rhett."

He moved to get into the bed alongside her.

"Take off your filthy riding boots before you-"

He silenced her with a kiss and then went to remove his boots.

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"Dr. Meade is right, the city has been exceptionally hot and humid," Rhett said with his wife tucked alongside him.

"Please don't remind me, it is July and the baby is only the size of a field mouse. I am not quite sure how we'll survive the rest of summer."

He laughed softly and rubbed a hand along her arm. "Perhaps you'll actually spend some time with the children at Tara."

Scarlett gave him a look. He had lasted two days with Bonnie the summer before, she had lasted five before abandoning the remaining children to Suellen, all three of those days had been solely to prove him wrong.

He laughed again.

"Tara does sound nice," it sounded like she didn't need to wear a corset. "But, I cannot imagine chasing after Bonnie and Ella nor can I imagine having to listen to Suellen about Bonnie and Ella."

"It's not like you'd go without servants," he pointed out.

She looked up at him, "The house is large, not that large."

He laughed again.

She looked away from him, "Perhaps you could go, for a week or two."

"Now Scarlett, you know the country life is not for me."

She looked up at him, "Rhett, you grew up on a plantation just like me."

"I was much happier when we were in town."

"No little boy is happier in town," Scarlett gave him a look, then placed a hand on her stomach.

He laughed softly, "My dear, was that meant to guilt me into accompanying you and the children."

"Just for a little while Rhett, some fresh air and cool breezes, playing with the children in the creek."

"Scar-"

"Unless you would like your wife in her very fragile state with your unborn son trying to wrangle your hellion of a daughter chasing after fish in the creek."

He gave her a look as she looked innocently up him at him, he then laughed softly, "So the Butlers are going out to Clayton County for the week?"

"Two," she kissed his jaw.

Thanks for reading!