AN: Happy New Year! Still lazy and not totally writing back. Lol. No one is ever getting me to write about a character named Cat or Eleanor Butler if I write about them that would be I believe them to be canon and I do not. I would be happier taking Dixie Cross's backstory details as canon. :-P PS-They do have green-eyed girls in the Christmas shorts. I don't actually think I will ever write much further than like 1877 aside from epilogues. They have 3-4 years to figure out their crap after the end and that's it. It is the 19th century and Rhett is already 45.

Thanks for reading and the reviews, I hope everyone had a super fun night on the couch. Lol. If anyone did anything more than a night on the couch...Lol. I am old and think you're crazy.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Part Twenty

Early May 1873

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Rhett Butler was a little blurry-eyed as he crossed the threshold to his house. He'd been nearly ready to fall off his stallion as he returned home from a long night of cards. They nearly never ran that long anymore, they were all getting older and more settled in their ways. Occasionally new blood came to town to invigorate them, such had been the case tonight. A new man from New York, he'd kept them all on their toes and out far too late.

Rhett blinked once as he spied his wife asleep on the stairs leaning against the banister.

He blinked again, expecting her to be imagined because of the hour or the drink.

She opened her eyes.

There was a fire in them he hadn't seen in some time.

"What time is it?" she asked coldly.

"Just past three, is everything alright? You should be in bed." The deep burgundy robe concealed their growing child, but the baby was there, an unmistakable solid curve to his wife's stomach when she undressed.

"You should also be in bed, your own bed."

She moved to stand and he moved to help her as she was less than steady on her feet; she batted away his hands.

"Are you kicking me out of your bed again, dear wife?" He hardened himself immediately.

"Why shouldn't I? You go from their bed to mine." She was a laughingstock, she knew it.

"Whose bed am I in? I believe you're overtired. Did you have a nightmare?" Perhaps that was it, perhaps Scarlett had simply awoken confused, the baby and whatnot, it was bound to play havoc on her dreams. He had a sudden urge to rope off the stairway at night.

"Those things!"

"Scarlett, it's quite late. I suggest we go to bed."

She flung away the hand he tried to place on her, "Don't touch me."

He sighed and ran a hand along his face in a moment of weariness. The good night he had until he stood to leave the table suddenly seemed like a poor idea. He almost wanted to leave Scarlett at the bottom of the stairs and deal with it in the morning, but she was expecting. He could hardly leave her in such a state. "The sun is nearly up, my sweet. Either tell me what is wrong by using actual descriptive words or we are refraining from having this argument until there is daylight."

"Why you-" she went to hit him.

"May I remind you that you are pregnant? I am fairly certain Dr. Meade would advise against such an activity."

"I certainly don't need to be reminded that I am carrying our child. Perhaps you do. A reminder that you're supposed to be an upstanding husband and father."

"The town is hardly going to turn on me for playing cards. Theo Vincent was at the table with me, they're expecting him to run-"

"Playing-You're a liar Rhett Butler, you were out exactly where you always go."

"And where exactly do I always go, Mrs. Butler."

"That red-haired whore!"

"Seeing as the hour is late, I'll assume you're talking about Belle Watling?"

"Your very favorite investment. We are about to have five children Rhett."

He was pulled back in time two years. The cruel words he spoke to her before fleeing with Bonnie for three months. She hadn't made mention of those words in two years, but they apparently had never left her memory. They were different people now. He was no longer a man seeking to escape his loveless…or well one-sided love marriage. It was comfortable, nice. Oh, there was always a longing for more. For her heart, for what was truly in and on her mind. She gave him bits. Small tidbits that meant he'd never truly give up wanting it, yearning for it, hoping for it.

There was more now. There were children. Not just one child he thought he could escape with.

Soon to be five.

It was nice. It filled him in a way he could have never imagined. Maybe because he was older now. He could be still. He could appreciate the things he had and not focus on the things out of his reach.

He could have never imagined a decade prior having five children. Taking the evening meal often before the sun went down. Escorting children home from school. Taking the midday meal with a family, his family. Bonnie on a chair or his lap depending on if she had taken a nap or not and her level of fussiness. Nicky in his highchair because Scarlett and Bonnie had forbidden the child from taking his meals in his father's lap. Most evenings in the parlor.

The only thing he could have imagined a decade prior were his evenings in Scarlett's bed.

Now though, this life was his life.

It was his past, it was his future.

He was settled in it.

Likely from the moment, he put Bonnie on a train in Charleston to return home.

He had accepted his fate and his future, only it had turned out to be so much more than he imagined.

"My dear, have you been carrying that around for two years?"

Her jaw was tense.

"I promise you have turned out to be the much better investment," was that what this had all been about, earning her keep?

"I am your wife; I am not some damn investment."

"All the money in the world would hardly be equal to our children, I'm sorry I spoke so harshly at the time. You can't ever believe I'd have placed anything above Bonnie, do you?"

She flinched.

"I was out playing cards, Scarlett. I would hardly go to another woman's bed when I am allowed in yours."

"I don't believe you."

She was still delightfully innocent after those two brief marriages, if she could imagine that he could find the same satisfaction with others that he found with her. "It would be like eating tinned beans before eating at a fine restaurant, while still full from your last meal."

He watched her still disbelieving and angry eyes.

Angry and hurt.

"Why Scarlett, are you jealous?" He asked with amusement, the hope hidden in his voice, buried so deep within him that it barely even surfaced in his thoughts.

"Absolutely not. I'm worried about the reputation of our family."

His lips lifted up in a smile. He decided to be truthful. "I've not been with anyone else since you informed me you were pregnant with Nicholas. It would hardly be appropriate while you were carrying our child."

"But you did before."

"After you banished me from your bed, quite right my dear, I did. You certainly didn't make an argument for it then. Did you think I was not a man of my word and would refrain?"

She hadn't really thought; she hadn't really cared. Oh, she'd cared after the fact once he told her about his investment.

He almost wished he could tell her he hadn't been with anyone since they created Nicholas. He still had a feeling of loathing and remorse from the woman he had bedded in Charleston, trying to prove to himself he could move past his wife. His subconscious had known that night had restarted his marriage. It had known that act had been unfaithful to his wife in a way the years before had not. Oh, the times before hadn't been without guilt, but they were justified, more right than they were wrong. Charleston had been all wrong.

"You haven't been with anyone else since?"

He was touched in a way he'd never be able to put into words by the tiny waver in her voice as she tried so hard to be hard, to be cold. "No, should I expect to ever be with anyone else?"

"Absolutely not!"

He smiled now.

"Were you really just playing cards?" Scarlett questioned.

"Yes and it had been a wonderful evening despite my losses until I came home."

"You lost?"

"Not as severely as others, but my pockets are a bit lighter this evening."

"Rhett, I thought you never lost?"

"I've certainly taken a few gambles that didn't turn out as I expected. Can hardly be expected to win if you aren't willing to lose. Now could we please go to bed, my dear. I'd sweep you off to bed, but I imagine the children would not enjoy being orphaned."

She seemed to notice for the first time that night without scorn and malice that her husband did look weary. "Are you always playing cards when you go out at night?" Scarlett questioned as she walked up the stairs with her husband by her side.

"Not at all. Some nights we just drink and talk."

"What do you talk about?"

"How exhausting our wives are and how we miss the unfettered days of our youth."

She shot him a glare, but he kept a hand on her back still moving her up the stairs.

Thanks for reading!