Disclaimer: I own nothing regarding GWTW

Author's Notes: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback.

Chapter Nine

Rhett rarely spoke of his love for her, but Scarlett knew he did love her. He had taken her to Tara several times and she knew he was incredibly bored every time they visited the plantation. He had killed that creature for her after all. He had made himself sterile because she didn't want to have any more children. He had put her aunts in their places. He was so worried about her when she had the miscarriage. He never blamed her for the loss of the baby.

Even though Scarlett knew without a doubt that Rhett loved her for some reason she had never tried to use his love against him. She guessed it was because she was too afraid of Rhett returning to cruel, mean Rhett that she just couldn't take the chance. She had sweet, kind Rhett. Rhett who was now listening to her in regard to Bonnie. Rhett who was discussing what they should do about Bonnie and for Bonnie like she belonged to both of them.

A year after that fateful night, the couple had gone out to supper for their anniversary.

Over supper Rhett asked, "Have you found a business that you want to buy?"

"No, I can't seem to find the perfect business."

"Why don't you buy the sawmills back?"

Peevishly Scarlett said, "Mr. Greene won't sell them back to me. At any price."

Rhett stopped himself from laughing. He said, "You had to sell them when you did."

"I know and I don't regret that. I had to put some distance between me and Ashley, but they were my baby."

"I know. I still clearly remember the first deal I made that netted me over a thousand dollars."

"Wow!"

"You could buy a cotton gin."

"I thought about that, but it would require me to need to spend too much time in Clayton County in the fall."

"You could just be an investor."

"No, I want a hands on role."

"Let me know what you decide."

"I would like a business that involved numbers. I like numbers. I can add a column up in my head quite quickly."

"I know. I have appreciated that ability as you have been helping me with my investments. You could go to college and learn more about investing."

"I am not a blue stocking."

"No, you are not but when I finally leave this earth you will have to manage all my investments."

"I will just continue reading your financial magazines."

"I'm going to buy you some books on finance. You can read them in the privacy of our bedroom where nobody but me will ever see you."

"That is acceptable."

"Good. Are you finished?"

"Yes."

"Let's go dancing."

"Alright."

Although technically Rhett was still received by proper society, the only social events they attended were children's birthday parties. He had made sure that all Scarlett's children got invitations to the parties.

Ever since Rhett had gotten Ashley the job as a teller, he would check with Mr. Stone about how Mr. Wilkes was performing his duties. Mr. Stone would always say, "Mr. Wilkes can perform his duties adequately, but he will never be anything more than a teller."

Rhett would always reply, "If he can't do his job correctly, fire him."

"Sure. Sure."

Rhett knew that Mr. Stone would never fire Mr. Wilkes because Mr. Wilkes was performing his duties adequately. Rhett was often tempted to tell Scarlett how bad an employee Mr. Wilkes was but he knew that Scarlett would just come to Mr. Wilkes defense and not acknowledge what a loser the man was.

Rhett took the family traveling every summer as soon as the children got out of school. They were usually gone all summer. The summer of seventy-two they had traveled to the North. The summer of seventy-three they had traveled to the west.

Scarlett never found a business she wanted to buy. She found a reason not to buy any of them. After Rhett had let her make some investments after he had made her do the proper amount of research. She found out she did enjoy being an investor. She spent two to three hours a day reading all the financial magazines. She avoided investing in bank and railroads. Rhett had said, "Why not? We can make a lot of money."

"They are too risky."

"All right. You make the safe investments, and I will make the risky investments."

"That is because you are a gambler."

"Yes, I am."

In the two and a half years since that fateful night Scarlett and Melanie had rarely spent time together just the two of them. They had spent time together when Beau and Wade had a play date but most of the time the mother had just dropped the child off and visited for a few minutes before leaving. In truth Melly didn't want to spend time with Scarlett and her perfect life and Scarlett didn't want to spend time with Melly and her perfect husband.

In September of seventy-three Ashley sent Scarlett a note informing her that Melanie was dying, and she was asking for Scarlett. Scarlett had gotten Rhett to take her to the Wilkes house as soon as she finished reading the note.

As Scarlett and Rhett rode over to the Wilkeses, she said, "What a fool?"

"She should have believed her doctors."

"I was talking about Ashley."

Rhett burst out laughing and said, "I agree."

Melly died an hour after Scarlett had spoken with her. After she had gotten Scarlett to promise to take care of her husband and son, the woman faded fast.

Ashley broke down. He looked like a lost little boy. Scarlett saw the truth. That Ashley had always loved Melly and that he never really loved her. He had been using her all this time. Either to flatter his conceit or to carry him financially in these hard times. It was probably both. It didn't matter. She knew that she now had two more children for Ashley was no better than a child in his misery and Scarlett was saddled with him because she had made Melanie that promise.

Scarlett had turned and looked at Rhett. The man who had been her best friend as long as she could remember. The man that she had probably loved since he bid one hundred and fifty dollars just so she could dance. The man who had patiently waited for her to realize she loved him too. She knew she had relied on him for so very long. She knew she had loved him for so very long.

Rhett stepped over to her and said, "Do you want me to handle everything?"

Scarlett whispered, "Yes, thank you. I love you. Thank you for so patiently waiting for me to realize it."

"You are worth it. Let me get you home. We will come back tomorrow and get things organized."

Rhett took charge. He saw to everything. He arranged the funeral and paid for everything.

After the funeral, Scarlett told Rhett, "I promised Melly to look after Ashley and Beau."

Rhett said, "I know it was her last request for you to take care of Mr. Wilkes, but I think it is time for Mr. Wilkes to be his own man. I believe he is a lot stronger than you, or Miss Melly think. We will nonetheless fulfill your promise. I will be the one responsible for taking care of Mr. Wilkes. He doesn't like me so he will not want to take anything from me. He will be more determined to stand on his own two feet just to get away from me."

Scarlett giggled and said, "Thank you, Rhett, for taking care of me."

"You are just too trusting and too loyal, Scarlett."

"If you say so although you would be the only person to say that."

Over the next several months, Rhett let Scarlett talk about her feelings for Melly, Ashley, and him. She kept saying, "How could I not see that I loved you and Melly? How could I not see that Ashley was not the man he had been before the war?"

Rhett had simply smiled and said, "You can be very obtuse sometimes."

"Don't let me be that way anymore."

"You can be very stubborn in your beliefs sometimes."

"Don't let me be that way anymore either."

"Sometimes you don't see what you don't want to see."

"Then you make sure I see it."

"Alright, Dear. I'm going to get Bonnie a new pony for Christmas."

"Rhett, thank you for listening to me and not teaching her how to jump."

"When both you and Mammy were against the idea, I decided it was probably a bad idea."

That and Rhett had remembered what his future self had said. He now knew it had been a psychic warning. He had made the most of the information. He and Scarlett had been happy since that night. Because he knew that she loved him, he was able to patiently wait for the moment when Wilkes revealed his true self.

Rhett and Scarlett's relationship didn't change that much after Scarlett told him she loved him. Rhett had truly known for a year or so that she did love him. She just didn't know it.

Shortly after Melanie Wilkes's funeral, Rhett urged Mr. Wilkes to move into Hamilton House so India and Aunt PittyPat could help him take care of Beau.

At Wade's birthday dinner, Ashley said, "I have written my friend that lives in New York. He said that if I can get there, he can get me a job as a junior executive."

Scarlett said, "You should do it, Ashley. It will be a new beginning."

"We are going to move up there next month. India is moving with us to keep house for me. We will stay with my friend for a couple of weeks. He has a guest house we can stay in."

"How wonderful," Scarlett saw Beau and Wade's sad faces and said, "Maybe Beau can come and visit during the summer. I'm sure Aunt PittyPat and Uncle Henry would like that also."

"Of course. I guess India could travel down with him."

"Wonderful"

The first several summers after Melanie's death India and Beau did travel to Atlanta. The first summer, they spent the entire summer. The next summer, they only spent the month of June. The next summer they had only spent two weeks at the beginning of June. Unfortunately, despite the adults' best efforts the cousins were drifting apart. The Wilkeses' life was in New York. After Aunt PittyPat passed away in the fall of seventy-six, the visit ceased altogether. The boys corresponded but neither was a good correspondent.

The Butler family traveled quite a bit over the years during the summer. Some of Rhett and Scarlett's favorite destinations were New York and Boston. While they were in New York they would have supper with the Wilkes, but no more time was spent together. At these suppers both Scarlett and Rhett could tell that Ashley had finally adjusted to his post war life. One night after one of these suppers, Scarlett said to Rhett, "Maybe I should have let him go to New York all those years ago."

"Or maybe he needed those eight years to come to terms with his loss of his perfect life."

"I guess with Melly's death that life was completely lost to him."

"That may have been what caused him to start living in the real world."

"He is his own man, but he still isn't doing great. He is a junior executive but that is as far as he will go."

"True."

With that conversation Rhett and Scarlett dismissed Ashley Wilkes from their minds. They had done all they were going to do for the man.

When the six-year anniversary of that fateful night occurred, Rhett was a little surprised. Everything else his older self had told him had come true. He wondered why he wasn't already dead. He decided that he had started taking care of himself since that night. He was going to continue taking care of himself and hope that he got another ten years. Just long enough to see all the children settled. No, another fifteen years to get Scarlett through the change of life so she never got with child again.

Rhett and Scarlett discussed moving to the North, but Scarlett just couldn't say yes. By this time, Scarlett had been received back into polite Southern society sort of. Rhett's steadfast devotion to Scarlett and the deaths of Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing sped her back into polite society. Also, by that time Scarlett appeared to be living a proper life in all intents and purposes. The couple attended traveling lectures, plays, a traveling opera, and the circus. They rarely attended events given by the local gentry because to the couple these events were boring and despite all the years that had passed, the conversation always turned to the war and how good life was before the war.

Scarlett spent her afternoons researching investments and reading college textbooks. Primarily books that dealt with finance, but she also read books on history for she now knew that what happened around the world affected her business ventures. She read three of the four newspapers that were delivered to the house every day. There was The Atlanta Gazette, The London Times, and The New York Daily. The last paper was the Charleston Democrat, and she wasn't interested in what happened in Charleston. She had foreseen the panic of seventy-three and had moved a lot of their money into safe investments. Rhett was pleased with how well Scarlett was managing their money. He was optimistic neither she nor the children would ever run out of money.