Where Do We Go From Here?

by Saber Girl Leia

1/21/06

This is chapter two, but it begins with a rewrite of chapter one. Some has stayed the same, but some has changed after the suggestions I got in reviews. (Thanks again.) As for the leech line, remember that people do not always, especially in anger, say what is true. They say what they feel, or what they think will get to the one they are angry with.

Sum: The conversation the morning after Ashley's birthday goes differently, and consequently, so does the rest of Scarlett's story.

Disclaimer: Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind, David O. Selznick and so many wonderful actors and crew made the movie. I read the book and saw the movie and wrote this, and that is all.

A few lines of dialogue in the very beginning of this is taken from the movie script. (Found online... hopefully dependable...)

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"I'd like to extend my apologies for my conduct of last night..."

Scarlett, hearing his voice again, felt like she was coming up from deep in the water, swimming back to reality... His voice... But what had he said!

"Oh, but Rhett..."

"I was very drunk and quite swept off my feet by your charms."

His voice was all wrong. He was supposed to hold her, kiss her! What had happened? What had she done wrong? Last night...

"Oh, don't Rhett. We both..." Scarlett blushed the color of her namesake. She patted the spot beside her. "Do come back to bed."

What? Rhett had not expected that, not anything of the sort. She sounds... like a whore, he thought. And it is because of me she sounds that way. But then again, asked if the whores or the ladies I have known were sillier, I might very well answer the ladies. Perhaps she really meant it... oh, to do as she said!

And yet... he thought of the day and night before, of all aspects of it. "If I came back to bed you would only pretend I was that Ashley Wilkes!" he spat out the name like a poison, "I am not a fool, Scarlett!"

Scarlett, sat forward, upset and yearning to explain herself, but she could not speak. Before she could muster her thoughts he began again. "Scarlett, I've been thinking things over and I really believe it'd be better for both of us, if we admitted we made a mistake and got a divorce."

"Rhett, no!"

"It makes my head spin to think of how quickly you'd divorce me if Ashley were free."

"Please, let me explain!"

"I'll explain for you, Scarlett! You're a leech, a siren! I showed you something you had never known last night, and you think because of that you should stay with me and it will profit you!" His voice turned hard and seemed to form a solid wall between them. "You're a businesswoman, Scarlett. Not a wife."

How dare he? "You supported my mills! You supported me!"

"Yes, I poured my money into your ventures, and you stabbed me in the back! Half my money went straight to Mr. Ashley Wilkes, gentleman, whom you claim to love. You shrink at nothing, Sca-"

"I don't love him!"

Silence sprang up in the footsteps of her yell, and Scarlett hoped desperately that the sound had not traveled beyond her room, that the Mammy had not heard, that Bonnie had not heard... Scarlett stared at her husband, her eyes roving over his face, trying to read in it his reaction.

"You certainly did well at giving the appearance of it."

"I..." it was painful for Scarlett to admit defeat. It had been all her life. Finally, "I was wrong." She hung her head, her face red as the rouge she wasn't wearing. "I thought I loved him, but I never truly did. I realized that... yesterday."

Rhett sounded disgusted. "If what happened last night is all that love is to you, I could've found you some nice saloon to work in long ago." He had stopped yelling, but the acid in his voice now was worse. "Bonnie's the only good thing that's ever come of you."

"I didn't mean last night, you varmint! At the mill-" It was very hard for her. "We spoke and I realized," that he is completely different from me and though I shall always care for him as a brother, there is nothing more!" Without noticing it Scarlett had risen to her knees on the bed as she yelled, so that she was now right in Rhett's face.

There was quiet for a moment. "Come to Europe with me."

"What?"

"There's nothing for us here. I'm taking Bonnie, whether or not you can tear yourself away from your mills to come with us. But," he reached out tentatively and toyed with her hair, "I'd like you to come, my dear. You will like Europe."

And let my mills go to absolute ruin? she thought. "For how long?"

"However long we wish." This one, last ditch effort, oh, let it work!

"Yes," she said in a small voice that she tried to force bigger, "I will come."

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Please review! I LOVE constructive criticism. Any comments, questions, notes, suggestions, hate mail, love notes, messages in secret code... seriously, I'll read and respond to it all. And you will be in my book of cool people. :D