Ahem: a collection of stories for my little sister's birthday. I shall put my music library on shuffle and pair her top 10 ships with the first 10 songs. Each ship gets a story related to the song with decreasing times: ship #1 gets 10 min., ship #2 gets 9 min., ship #3 gets 8 min., etc. So ship #10 is a hot mess 1 min. panic attack.

You don't HAVE to listen to the song first...but you might want to. And author's notes are bolded.

3. ScarlettxRhett (Gone with the Wind) – "The Next Best Thing To Love" from A Class Act - 8 min. timer

This is from some random CD of just a plethora of assorted songs from musicals. I don't know a thing about this musical at all...but this song is pretty fitting, actually.

Scarlett sat by herself, just...sitting.

Sitting.

The house was very quiet.

It wasn't a rare occurrence – it was a very large house, and it was easy for it to be quiet.

But usually she knew that he was there somewhere doing something, and their daughter was playing happily away in her playroom.

Mammy and Pork and Prissy were somewhere, and she could have gone and asked Mammy for advice, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew exactly what her advice would be, and she wasn't sure her pride could deal with it.

Mammy was always right.

He had taken Bonnie away to London and left her alone, and...well, she knew he'd be back, but it felt...just strange, just empty, just quiet without him there.

Not that having him there was great. They fought often (though she could never remember what about), and Mammy was probably a better conversationalist, if she was being honest.

He loved her, and it made things slightly awkward.

She was his wife, and she should love him too, she supposed.

She didn't. But still. It was very quiet without him in the house.

The state that he had left her in didn't make things easier. He was always something resembling passionate whenever he decided on a whim to bed her, but the last time, the time before he left, the time in the red dressing gown as the darkness at the top of the staircase swallowed them...well, she wouldn't let herself call it passionate, but she would let herself call it the best thing she had ever experienced with him.

And maybe it was the next best thing to love.

Something that might...might also be love.

(nah, that sex was great, and Scarlett knows it, lolol)