February 27, 2022 update: Chapter 40 is done at at the beta's! It's a big fat 8000 word whopper, to reward you for your patience. Also, I now have a beta! Will post as soon as she's finished with it, of course. Until then, there's a 500 word teaser at the top of Chapter 39. See you soon, misscyn
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Disclaimer: I own nothing. I curse and bless Margaret Mitchell on a daily basis now for giving us such a bittersweet, frustrating, heartbreaking, brilliant story. It's like a frikkin Rubik's cube for fic writers. And we will never know how much of it was actually planned to mess with us as bad as it does.
Chapter 1
Rhett Butler was a liar.
A big, fat one.
The man certainly made a tidy argument that fateful day he left her, laying virtually all the blame for their disastrous union squarely at Scarlett's feet. She mulled over his words for weeks afterward; all the tiny and not-so-tiny injustices, and, much harder to swallow, all the jagged little truths.
It was more than he had ever spoken about their relationship, after all. In twelve years. So very much more.
Though there were two sentences, one statement, really, in that entire last soliloquy that stood out in her consciousness, that one that just wouldn't, couldn't be digested, processed, accepted. The reason he gave for never truly telling her he loved her.
"You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip."
Scarlett had a problem with those two sentences. Oh yes, she did.
Who exactly was he talking about? Frank, for God's sake? Two weeks with Charles before he died? Her beaux back before the war, when she was 16, in another life, another universe?
She wasn't demonstrative. She didn't speak to others of loving them, not much, anyway. She showed love by providing. She kept people alive. All of them. Not through hugs and pretty words. Through work. Back-breaking, soul-damaging work. Through personal sacrifice, cheating, stealing, lying, and killing, that once she had to at Tara. She kept all of them alive and made sure they were fed and clothed with a roof over their head. There were other people who could be soft and speak the pretty, soft words. She had to get things done.
Rhett wasn't one who needed to be cared for. Not by her. She had once thought he would take care of her, but his kind of caretaking ultimately hurt. He petted and indulged her just like he did their daughter, with very few limitations. Let her ruin herself. Let her build that horrible house and introduced her to all those terrible people and encouraged her to thumb her nose at society with him. Until he didn't.
She'd been the epitome of tacky new money, as trashy as that Jonas Wilkerson and Emily Slattery ever had. A bitter pill to swallow.
So now, after the fire, after his nasty little 'I'm leaving you Scarlett, and by the way, I don't give a damn what happens to you' postscript, he did come back every six weeks or so, sometimes less, sometimes more - although a fat lot of good it did. Somehow he figured out when she wouldn't be at home much, ensuring they passed in the night. He always insisted on walks where they would be seen, dining in restaurants, church attendance, outings together, and with Wade and Ella. He sent gifts, letters to the children when he felt like it. He left correspondence on the office desk to be mailed at specific times, in order to indicate to the recipients he was still there.
When he was anything but.
He said goodbye to the children while she was at the store.
And then he left like a thief in the night. Every. Damn. Time.
He kept himself aloof and if there were kindnesses and pity, she didn't see them. Only that stupid poker face that never, ever slipped. The mocking, the barbs, the taunts were all toned down, but still there. Along with the disparaging and condescending looks, of course.
Scarlett was tired, so very tired; but after months of living this way, something, something she didn't quite understand, started burning in her gut. Anger. Anger at the madness of it all. She was living this way for appearances, was she? Putting up with his disrespect and disinterest and disdain to keep gossip down? From who? A handful of semi-related people who had never, ever shown her that they cared for anything other than the show, the entertainment she provided?
For Dolly Merriweather and Mrs. Meade, for the love of all that is holy?
She didn't need the trappings of that marriage or the respect of those God-awful people who took what she gave and laughed at her for it. Not anymore. None of it made her happy or content. The only thing that had ever really made her feel fulfilled in any way was her hard work when it paid off.
And so she got down to it.