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Part Twenty-six
Early October
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She was on the third floor with Nicky, Mammy and Prissy when Rhett appeared.
He had been looking better.
He had been drinking less.
He had taken to being outside with the children for hours after they returned home from school.
She had sense of calm in their lives. In how they would go on.
Only now his face. The lines etched deep within it.
There was no expression.
"Leave us and take Nicholas," he said only to Prissy.
She wanted to ask what had happened that he would only send Prissy away. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to know if Wade or Ella was gone as well. She wanted to stay, hidden away on the third floor, safe in the bubble he had created. She wanted to cling to her baby as he was taken from the room.
"It's Mrs. Wilkes," he spoke once Prissy had left the room.
"Melly?" her head tilted and she was confused. "What about Melly?"
"She's dying."
"How can she be dying? We took supper with her last night." She was so very confused, "Did she have an accident?"
"She had a miscarriage."
"Melly isn't pregnant," Scarlett shook her head.
"She didn't tell you?" Rhett asked.
Scarlett could see the change in Mammy's expression, "Did you know?"
"She didn't tell me, Miss Scarlett."
"She didn't have to tell anyone. We knew. She's been so happy these last two months," Rhett informed her, "I knew it couldn't mean anything else."
"But, Dr. Meade said another baby would kill her," she was still so confused.
"It has killed her," Rhett said with exhaustion, "Dr. Meade has sent for you."
"She can't be dying," Scarlett shook her head again.
"She hasn't your strength. She's never had any strength. She's never had anything, but heart."
"But-"
"Dr. Meade wouldn't have sent for you, unless it were to say goodbye," his eyes dropped to her stomach. To the stomach, he imaged Scarlett hadn't even noticed she was clutching. 'Soon' was the word everyone used when viewing Scarlett's stomach.
"I need to change," she suddenly realized, she was in a pale mauve dress.
"I don't know if there's time."
"Oh," her mouth dropped. She sat for another moment. "Are you coming?"
"Of course," he nodded and then remembered himself as he went to help his heavily pregnant wife get up from her seat.
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She spent hours by Melly's side. Made her promises, listened to her sister's words as her death was anything, but swift.
The pains began an hour after she arrived. They were irregular and not strong, but they began.
Eventually, Dr. Meade sighed as he looked at her, "You need to be in bed. Say your goodbyes."
Scarlett forced herself to say good night and not any of the words she desperately wished to say, she bent in, even closer, willing to promise anything.
"Captain Butler-be kind to him. He-loves you so."
She was confused as Dr. Meade led her out of the room. Confused to find her husband sitting in a chair directly across from the doorway, he stood as they emerged from the room.
"Is Mammy home?" Dr. Meade questioned.
"Of course," Rhett nodded. The old woman would never leave Scarlett expecting after what they had just gone through.
"It may be Scarlett's time. I will come when I can, send for Dr. Gregson if need be." The doctor sighed again. "Send the women in."
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She needed to see Ashley; the thought passed through her mind briefly, but then Rhett's arm came around behind her. Leading her forward, pulling her past the sorrow in the parlor.
She wondered if he loved her. She felt his arm tighten around her as she paused on the porch. The thick dark mist, the gaslights casting haunting shadows.
She bent into his embrace.
The safety of her husband.
She loved him.
She knew it instantly.
She loved him and had for a long time.
He was her home.
Not Tara or Peachtree.
Rhett.
Rhett was her home.
Even when he was destroyed, he had done his best to protect her. He had carried her through the grief of losing Bonnie. He had filled their house with color and music when it should have only been silent and grey.
A pain swept through her and her husband swept her up into his arms.
Oh yes, he loved her.
How silly of her to have missed it for so long.
Her proud husband.
It hadn't been the children.
It had been her.
It was such a comforting thought in the darkening dusk. Pressed into her husband's side as they rode in silence in the carriage. Their hands entwined over her stomach.
She looked up at him and placed a kiss along his jaw. She had been so awful, so many times. They would start over though. She would fill their house with children. Make it so he had a reason to laugh and smile once more.
She wanted to whisper apologies. The apologies she had never been able to say after Bonnie's death and for all the nastiness the years before.
She didn't know how though, so she stayed pressed into his side.
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Doctor Meade arrived hours later, not long her the pains had finally started to come at regular intervals, but far apart. Mammy and the doctor were of a similar mindset that it would take some time. The baby might be ready to be born, but her body hadn't been ready to deliver. They'd told her to do her best to get some rest and Dr. Meade had been settled into a guest room.
Mammy stayed with her for a few more hours before sending Prissy in to sit with her, promising her child that she was just asleep in the next room if needed.
Rhett stayed with her though.
He held her as she tried to sleep. He rubbed her back. He kept an arm around her when she insisted she needed to walk.
When she was being driven mad by the four walls of her room. He kept a strong arm around her as she climbed the stairs to the floor above. She hadn't wanted to walk the hallways outside of the children's room, especially as Beau would awaken in horror and confusion. Rhett had sent the boy to their house as they had arrived at his.
There was nowhere left to send the children.
There were four again just as there had been. Soon there would be five.
There would be no Bonnie.
But there would be five children just as they had expected.
He stayed by her side without complaint without rest.
She was alone, but for him.
Throughout the long night, it was just them.
As dawn broke, then as the household awoke, he stayed by her side.
As she had the crushing thought that Melly had been lost to a baby, she stayed quiet through the pains so as to not scare the children.
She had made Mammy promise to tell them that she would be fine.
She would be.
She had no choice.
She had to be fine.
The baby had to be fine.
They simply couldn't bear anymore.
Just as the night passed without a baby, the morning passed without a baby.
It was nearly four in the afternoon as it approached the final stage.
Rhett refused to leave her side as the pain became unbearable.
He stayed holding her as nothing seemed to progress.
As she cried with exhaustion that she couldn't anymore, he climbed into the bed behind her and held her back to his chest, his long legs along her side. He murmured soothing words, he ordered forceful words, he spoke in a way that reminded her of their engagement, of a man who had declared his love six and a half years before she realized it.
She was crying as the baby finally left her body, exhausted and broken tears. She cried harder as the baby screamed at its new environment and she could see its dark hair. She cried as Rhett's body held her and she held onto his arms as Dr. Meade declared it a girl.
She made no desperate demands for her baby as she had with the last. She nearly wanted to send it away as Mammy carried the baby towards her. But Rhett's arms were right there, nearly entwined with hers, her arms followed as his made the move to open to receive the baby. His arms surrounded hers and the baby as it was laid into her arms.
She was as beautiful as her sister and brother before her. Tiny perfect features.
She stared up at them in a sleepy glare and a puffy face as if she had been bothered by her early wake-up. Her eyes were pale bluish gray. Quite unlike her siblings who had appeared at birth just as they were in life. As if she hadn't quite decided who she was yet and had likely wanted the extra week or two she had planned on before entering the world.
Scarlett's arms did nothing but lay alongside the baby. Rhett held them both up. Her eyes closed and she cried into his shoulder.
Eventually, it was all completed and Dr. Meade said that Mammy and Prissy could begin to clean her up.
She once again cried for Rhett not to leave her.
He promised he wouldn't as he let Prissy take the baby from them and then climbed out of bed, placing a kiss on Scarlett's head. He took the baby back as the women made quick work of removing the soiled cloths from under Scarlett and quickly cleaning her body before changing her gown. He climbed back into the bed as soon as they were done and she immediately turned into his body.
"The children need to see I'm fine," she spoke after several silent minutes as she took in the clock. It was nearly half-past six in the evening. She hadn't seen them since early afternoon the day before.
"Mammy will tell them."
"They need to see me," she repeated.
A short time later three relieved faces appeared in the doorway and an excited Nicholas nearly fell out of Sally's arms as he tried to reach his mother.
They sent the children off to supper with promises to see them in the morning.
Rhett stayed holding the baby in one arm and Scarlett in the other, "We're so lucky to have you," she whispered as sleep claimed her.
He let himself finally cry as she fell into a deep slumber, exhausted by the last day.
Thanks for reading.
AN: My day is straight up hell on earth from an unexpected furbaby death. I am really relating to Rhett right now. Everyone is seriously lucky that I wrote the Bonnie chapters last month. There may end up being a delay at some point in order to make sure the unwritten pieces are what they should be and not what I am currently feeling. Death is a crucial part of life. So I figured I should post these chapters today. We don't want to see or deal with it, but we can't escape it. Please feel free to actually comment on the chapter and not my dog. I know at least two people are yelling, "Not Melly too!"