Disclaimer: Except for OCs, characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of Margaret Mitchell, her heirs, and their assigns.
The next morning dawned bright and clear. As had been the case on the previous morning, everyone came to breakfast and left as suited them. Kate came down, looking refreshed. Ewan looked up at her with a smirk, which made her blush. She wore one of Rhett's favorite dresses, even though it wasn't terribly dressy or complicated. It was a cotton dress he'd bought when she was pregnant with Bonnie, green muslin with a vine print running up and down through it, and a simple full skirt that fell from just below her bosom. The basque was just snug enough and open enough to draw the eye. He happened to know she had a locket that fell just to where the neckline dipped lowest and wondered where the locket was.
Kate chattered with her sons as they all ate. Rhett noticed that she didn't eat as much as he would have expected. After breakfast she followed Mahala to the kitchen and came back with a basket. Langston and Gerald were upset that they could not be with Uncle Rhett today.
"I'm sorry, dears, but we're going to the patch today and you know that Mama doesn't like noise sometimes when she goes."
"Why does he want to go to the stinky old patch?" asked Langston. "It's just a bunch of flowers."
"He's never been there yet, Bud, and he may like these flowers. You be good for Pa and Herman and we will do something fun together tonight."
"Will you sing for us, Ma?" asked Jerry.
"We will see how Ma feels," said Ewan. "She's pretty tired because of the new baby you know."
"If she's so tired, why is she going to the patch?"
Kate held out her hands to silence the boys. "I'm going, and you're not. Be good today or you'll go to bed early tonight."
The adults made their way out into the morning sunshine. "It's wonderful to be alive on a day like today," said Ewan as he walked across the yard toward the stable. He turned and winked at his wife, who smiled back.
"Is it too much of a walk?" asked Rhett.
"It's just a few minutes," she answered, leading him in a direction he hadn't gone yet. "Next year this will be cotton and we won't be able to go cross lots, but that's next year."
"Am I invited to join you then?"
She looked surprised by herself. "I suppose that would be all right, as long as you don't act like a varmint. And you have to stop being such a cad. Nothing you say will make me betray my husband."
"Would you have ever said that to Ashley Wilkes?"
She could feel herself puffing up, but then laughed. "Ashley never would have made it an issue."
He laughed at her candor… and agreed.
"Will you want to leave your—Charleston again?"
"Anything that takes me away from that virago is a good thing."
"That what?"
"My wife."
"Oh." Scarlett widened the space between them.
They followed a lane for a few minutes, but it disappeared and then as they walked over a rolling hill a group of trees appeared. "It's just through those trees," she said. After a few minutes she asked quietly, "Rhett, was I a virago?"
He thought a moment. "No, you were a vixen and sometimes a bit of a shrew, but you were never a virago."
"I'm not sure I like those other words any better," she muttered. He threw back his head and laughed. This is what he missed about her, and why he came.
Eventually they reached the trees, and followed a path that went through them and he stood on the edge of her "patch."
"I don't like it." He couldn't move, and he wasn't sure he could breathe. "This is—I—I want to go back."
"Give it a minute." Scarlett put the basket down in the shade of one of the trees and tugged on his hands, pulling him further into the patch. "That's how I felt the first time I saw it. I wanted to go right back to Atlanta. I was scared and angry, and I wanted you, but then I remembered I couldn't have you. And then…"
Scarlett had him well into this patch of wildflowers now. There were a couple of red flowers mixed in here and there, but it wasn't the color he noticed. Everywhere he looked was blue, bright blue, royal blue, blue as the Bonnie damn Blue Flag. He let go of her hands and stopped and closed his eyes, willing the pain away. That's when he felt it. Something in the breeze, in the clean air and the sunshine evoked her. He opened his eyes and for the first time since the worst day of his life, blue was a source of joy. "She's here."
There was recognition in Scarlett's face—Scarlett, not Kate. She knew, and she felt it, too. This was why she brought him. "How did you find this?"
She laughed, a little nervously, and led him back to their basket. "They're called bluebonnets. I've come to find out that there are fields like this all over at this time of year. More of them are actually north of Houston than around here. If I'd known, I could have bought land much sooner. Tony showed me several good places. They just didn't feel like home. Finally he brought me to this one and another closer to the river.
"I looked at that one, and it was really well laid out. Then I saw this one, and I saw this field, that was only just starting to bud in early March. It cost me more than I could afford and I had to take out a mortgage so that I could buy a farm that includes this piece of land I'll never farm. I had to have this land. I could never plow this even if I never make a profit. I wanted Bonnie's brother or sister to grow up near this.
"If I had bought the other land, I'd be much closer to farming the whole thing… well except I might not have met Ewan." She smiled a secret smile. Looking at her, Rhett suddenly realized how she was different.
"I understand the changes in you, now. You have to keep this exactly the way it is, Scarlett." Rhett laid out the blanket and helped her to sit down.
"I come here most mornings this time of year, just to say hello to her."
Rhett put his arm around Scarlett—his Scarlett, if only just in this place and time—and the two of them sat quietly together. Occasionally one of them would remember something about Bonnie and mention it, and both of them needed their handkerchiefs from time to time. Rhett felt Scarlett get heavy on his arm and realized that she had fallen quite asleep. He gently laid her the rest of the way down and found a second blanket in the basket, which he placed under her head. Feeling a little restless, he wandered around the field a little to explore the land, keeping the trees and Scarlett in his line of vision.
The sun got higher and he went back through the flowers to where Scarlet lay. He imagined lying beside her and putting his arms around her. He thought of how her lips tasted and how her body would feel beneath his hands and mouth. He wondered what she looked like when she was carrying the twins. He could see the baby kicking her now and reached to touch it and pulled back. He didn't have the right. He'd traded it for his sister. He wondered if Rosemary had the slightest idea what he'd given up for her.
Looking through the basket, he found sandwiches and lemonade. He set out the plates and food and poured lemonade into the two mugs in the basket. He walked around the blanket to pat her hands and face.
"Scarlett, my dear, it's time to eat."
She woke, and jumped a little, and then gave him a sleepy smile. "I forgot where I was."
They ate in silence. Rhett was still looking at the field of bluebonnets. "My love, I have a story to tell you."
She moved a little closer and patted his hand. "You can trust me, you know. You might have, long ago."
He lit a cigar and smoked for a while. "It's a horrible story, Scarlett."
"You like to tell me I was a horrible wife and mother. It sounds suitable for me."
"You were never this bad."
Scarlett took his free hand in both of hers. "You're not telling me. You're telling Bonnie. She understands."
"Do you remember my last two visits before that night?"
"Christmas and Easter. You were so good with the children."
Rhett arrived for Christmas with an enormous crate and hugs all around. Wade and Ella, who hadn't fully started trusting Scarlett yet, were still shocked and scared because of all the death they'd had in the family in the past year, were delighted to see him. Scarlett hung back around the edges of the rooms, quietly picking up discarded wrappings or stacking cups in corners.
Even during Christmas dinner, which included Beau and Ashley Wilkes, she sat at her end of the table and quietly ate, ringing as they were ready for the courses to be changed. She engaged no one in conversation, which Rhett thought was odd, but not even Ashley looked to her to say anything, so clearly this was normal now.
They stopped outside their bedrooms as they retired for the night. Scarlett laid a trembling hand on his arm and said, "I didn't properly thank you for the silk. It's the most beautiful fabric I've seen in a long time. I don't know if I'll have any place grand enough to wear it."
He smiled gently. "You're quite welcome, my dear. The cigars are delightful."
"The tobacconist misses you. He said they're new and suggested them, based upon what you've always gotten in the past."
"It was most thoughtful. Thank you."
"You're welcome. Rhett?"
"Yes, my dear?"
He looked at her there, so pretty, so determined and yet so lost. She bit her lip and clenched her hands. Her eyes got brighter and brighter as he watched her give up whatever battle she was waging with herself.
"Merry Christmas and good night," she said in a quiet voice, disappointed in herself.
"Merry Christmas, Scarlett," he returned, just the slightest bit disappointed, too.
In the following week, Scarlett presented a calm if miserable mien to him, anxious to show him a better side to herself, and for the most part succeeded. He found his heart opening to her ever so slightly, and they found the slightest bit of common ground during a couple of afternoons in which they arranged their finances between themselves and made plans for the children. Rhett also gave Scarlett advice for her business dealings. He went back to Charleston with a lighter heart.
Rhett returned to Atlanta for Easter. The children were more cheerful yet still sad in the absence of their loved ones. Scarlett, under the guidance he had given her at Christmas, had gained some small amount of confidence. Rhett watched her enough this time to know she wasn't happy and hadn't eaten the way she once did. She was gentler and more often found in the nursery with Wade and Ella, and even little Beau Wilkes, than ever before. Otherwise, he learned from the servants, she spent long hours in the office of the store. Atlanta society did not seek her out, and neither would she force them to accept her.
He realized that she was also mourning a third loss. He didn't know how he knew, but he caught her a couple of times, once looking out a window, and once in the door way of the nursery, with her hand over her stomach. Not a word was said, but he was struck by the thought that she'd loved and wanted the child she lost.
Rhett decided to spend Bonnie's birthday in Atlanta, and together he and Scarlett went to her grave to lay flowers and pull weeds. After one particularly intransigent dandelion, Scarlett simply sat down and cried into her handkerchief for a few minutes. Rhett looked at her in curiosity. "It just seems so useless," she said. He didn't ask for more detail; he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
He left that night on the evening train. She watched him prepare with sadness in her eyes, but pulled back into the shadows when he looked at her. "I'll be back sometime, pet," he said, touching her cheek.
"I—I love you," she said, unable to keep the tears from falling.
"I still care," he admitted.
"I know, kindness and pity," she muttered.
"Don't be so dismissive of kindness, my dear. It's what Miss Melanie told you to give me."
"I've been trying, but it hasn't worked."
"It's worked better than you think, my dear. I'll be back sometime." With that, he was gone.
"Why are those two visits important?" asked Scarlett.
"Because I want you to know that my grief was starting to ease and I was coming back to you. I thought… I expected to have all the time in the world. Perhaps sometime the following year I would have come home to stay."
"Why is it important, now? You didn't come back. You found your Caroline instead."
He laughed mirthlessly, angrily. "No, Caroline found me, but the story starts before that."
In the waning days of the war, before Rhett had a chance to get back to Charleston and make sure his family was living, the Butlers were in dire straits. Langston had managed to lose all of his money well before anyone else did, and then he got ill. They had to have the doctor, who had some medications that would help him, but it was difficult to get medicine through the blockade lines and it was therefore very expensive.
About this time, Rosemary, who was just a few years past her first season, was offered an opportunity to pose for pictures of a delicate nature. There would be money, plenty of money to get the medicine and even some food of a better nature to give Father some of his health. She assented, and went to the place where she was directed to go.
She quickly learned what "of a delicate nature" meant. Still, once there, with the pile of money on the table, some of it in gold, she quickly decided to go through with it. They took about a dozen pictures and she got her money, mercifully. These men were honest enough not to swindle her out of what was agreed upon, at least.
Rosemary didn't say how she got the money, letting her parents think she must have sold something valuable. In a way, she had. They hoarded that money through the end of the war. There wasn't enough to pay the taxes for the house on the Battery, and they had to go to the plantation, where the main house had been burnt to the ground. The overseer's cottage was still standing, although it was damaged, and it did for them until Rhett could get there. Father wouldn't let them take money from Rhett, but a new source of income arrived in the form of some friends of Mother's, who were getting a regular check from their niece.
Father died a year and a half later, and Rhett was able to help the family in more tangible ways, although they were careful to hide the facts of where the money came from. Several years passed, which the Butler family passed in comfort. Rhett was married to Scarlett. He was happy and provided for his mother and sister as well.
Rhett's marriage foundered, and after several years he decided to leave his wife. He traveled but went back to visit Scarlett at Christmas, and between the two of them they managed a good holiday for three children who'd lost a playmate in Bonnie Butler and a dearly loved mother figure in Melanie Wilkes.
The mischief happened at the St. Cecelia Ball that January, 1874. Rhett had never been before, and went out of his way to be charming and attractive. In doing so, he caught the attention of a young lady by the name of Caroline Bell. She wasn't actually that young, having passed her first season almost twenty years prior, but she was still eager to find herself a husband, and none was more eligible to her eye than Rhett Butler.
The next morning, Caroline approached her father, Charles. "Daddy, I want Rhett Butler to be my husband."
Charles looked over at Caroline indulgently. "Sugar, he's married, and by all reports his wife is beautiful and a firecracker. You'll never get him."
"But I want him, daddy."
"The season is just starting, dear. See who else is around." Charles made a note to himself. There was gossip about the elder Butler brother that he hadn't paid attention to, and it seemed that the Butler girl might have something he recalled in her past as well.
Rhett spent the season escorting his mother or sister or both to various events. If he was aware that Caroline Bell's name went with her face, that was as much as he knew. He had no idea that any of the debutantes of the current season or of any season past had set their cap for him or that a net was closing around him.
In the middle of May, he was invited to the Bell residence. He spent dinner being fawned upon by the daughter of the house, whom he recalled as a bit of a cow on the dance floor. After dinner, he was taken to the father's office, where a series of photographs was placed on his host's desk. Rhett took one look and then quickly looked away.
"That can't be real."
"They're real enough. How do you suppose your family survived until your wife's aunts stepped in?"
"Does my sister know you have those? Who else has them? Why do you have so much information about my family?"
"I have all of them, and I can ensure they never again see the light of day, for a price."
"I can write you a bank draft."
Charles smiled. "We don't want money. Caroline has decided you will be her husband. I've therefore looked into you and your connections."
Rhett shook his head. "I have a wife."
"It's well known in certain circles that your marriage is just about over."
"We're on the edge of reconciling."
"I would say it's time to decide it's too late. Buy her off with a fat settlement and marry my daughter. I've spoken to my lawyers, and they estimate that if you can get your Georgia girl to agree, you can be married to my Caro by the first of October. If not, I'll see if the local newspapers want the pictures. If they don't, I'm sure there are other people who want them."
Suddenly, Scarlett never seemed so dear, but Rosemary's absolute ruin had to be avoided. Rhett argued for several days, but Charles shook his head, finally saying. "You'll have to choose, Butler. I will have either my daughter's happiness or your sister's misery."
Rhett's face was buried in Scarlett's lap. "I'm so sorry, but I couldn't figure a way out of it."
Her hands were buried in his hair and patting down his back. Tears were in her eyes as well. "I didn't realize. I'm so sorry. If I could only have sent money to my aunts before…"
"During the end of the war? You didn't have two cents to rub together."
"If I had been a better wife…"
"It all boils down to I was at the St. Cecelia and Caroline decided she wanted me. Her father was ruthless enough to get what his spoiled darling wanted. God help me, I was becoming that sort of father to Bonnie…"
"You wouldn't have. Your good humor would have kept you from doing something like that, I'm sure.
"I'm not as sure, my love."
He looked out over the field. The afternoon was long and the color of the flowers was fading into something equally lovely but no longer the color of their darling daughter's eyes. Scarlett was repacking the basket.
"Scarlett—"
"It's Kate, Captain Butler."
"But you understand, now, don't you? I didn't mean to hurt you. I had to save my sister."
She looked at him for a moment, her eyes honest and without guile. She spoke gently but without prevarication. "It's clear you couldn't have done anything else, but the result is that you sacrificed me."
"Darling, I came back for you. If you had just waited, I was going to buy a house for us on the Battery. I planned to live with you as my wife openly even though I was legally married to Caroline."
She ran to the tree line and threw up in some bushes. Her head was starting to ache. Rhett came up behind her. "Scarlet, please tell me you understand."
"I'm Kate, and I do understand, but Scarlett never would have."
"You don't mean that."
"I do." She moved back toward where the basket still lay. "The Scarlett you made love to that night, the Scarlett who was sick with pregnancy and grief when all the paperwork came, would have gone to Charleston with you if you'd come back in time. I'm sure that she was so eager to please you that she would have done anything you asked. You convinced her that she didn't need a reputation before you and she were even married, and she agreed. But it would have killed her. She would have had to leave Wade with Henry and Pittypat. Ella would have had to go to Tara where she'd at least be near her father's sister. Your wife would have figured out a way to get the twins, and Scarlett would have died in pieces for however long it took."
"You would have had me, and we would have had other children." Now he touched her middle.
Kate shook her head and moved his hand away. "No. Your father-in-law would find ways to remove me from your life little by little until I would have to leave or die." She turned and saw that Rhett had finished with the basket, so she picked it up.
"I'll take that." Rhett picked up the basket and they took the path back through the trees. "You don't forgive me, then?"
"It's not a matter of forgiveness at this point, Rhett. I did forgive you after I bought this land and came here as the person who belongs to it. I knew that you and I had felt the same pain and that I could finally let go of it. I forgive everything, Rhett. But today, from what you tell me… The fact is that you chose your family. It was a fair choice, and a good choice, but you didn't choose me. We can't pretend that you could have ever chosen me."
"I'm sorry," he said bitterly.
"Oh, Rhett, no! I made this beautiful life for myself, and now I could bring you here, and I know it helped you."
"I thought if I told you, if I unburdened myself, it would be better."
"It is! I understand, now, and I feel a little released by it. It wasn't something I pushed you into. The divorce had nothing to do with me."
"It didn't help me."
"Didn't it?" She turned to him and placed her hand along his cheek. "I understand, Rhett, and I forgive you. I accept that you did what had to be done."
He took her hand and kissed it. "Then we can—"
She shook her head. "Things are too twisted up. There's no way we can be happy together, now. Your sister's happiness is still fragile, right?"
He nodded.
Her hand went to her stomach as she said, "And there are children to consider. Rhett, I've learned to be happy without you. I found my place to be, and I think Ewan and I were meant to find each other. Somehow there's a way for you to be happy."
"Not without you."
Now her eyes flashed with anger. "Be honest, Rhett. If you cared that much for me you would have told Charles Bell to glue those pictures to the Battery lampposts for all you cared. You would have bought the glue, but you didn't. You made the only choice you could have and jettisoned the cargo you didn't need."
"I can't give you up."
"You already have. Without knowing what it was you were doing or what you needed, I chose to help you and do what you wanted, Rhett. I signed the settlement. You were doing the same, for your sister. You have a wife, and, from the pictures I've seen, she's pretty."
"I can't be a real husband to Caroline."
"I can't help you with that. I only know I can't be your wife… or your mistress."
Kate squared her shoulders and went back across the fields toward the house. Within just a few minutes the lights of home were visible. He caught up quickly.
"I've lost everything," he said, more bitterly yet.
"You saved your family." She took his hand and kissed it. "Just this week you gained two fine sons—"
"Who call another man 'pa'—"
"Who think you're an amazing man who's lived a life of great adventure, and you've started to make peace with Bonnie."
He started to see the better side of it. "And I found you, and we're friends again." He had started as friends with her once before.
A/N: the song was written by Fred Rose, and sung by Willie Nelson.
And now for a confession: There's not much story that's been written and not posted yet, so posting will be slow, potentially not again until Monday the 18th. There are some other fantastic GWTW fics here that are still being posted. I wonder if we can all review those a little bit more and perhaps encourage the other authors to post soon, too? I admit there are a couple that I'm hot to see updates for (For anyone keeping score, I think MS's real first initial is E, but if I'm wrong I'll have fun guessing again).
My author stats are not crying in the rain, nor are they blue. Thank you to the lovely reviewers and readers, including samandfreddie, Guest 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 , gogomohamad229, Romabeachgirl1981, gabyhyatt, Truckee Gal, kanga85, TheFauxGinge, COCO B, LE06301226, Asline Nicole, and pro patria mori.