AN: I know this is a controversial material and I am going to do my best not to show it in a controversial light but I do really like this central story. I promise to handle it as carefully and respectfully as possible. If you don't like it, that is fine, but please do not read it if that is the case. Thank you.

Stepping Backwards for Once

Chapter One

SCARLETT

It's so funny. I was standing facing my beloved Tara, the Tara that Will now owned but I owned in my heart, I had been the one to see it through the hardships, I had been the one to make sacrifices. I was the one who had lost friends, children, my true love, and my foolish girlhood notion that I could make one man fit into an idealized form but as I open my eyes it's as if I've been bewitched.

I am in a body that is years younger. I am in a fancy dress. I don't have the stretch marks that come with being pregnant four times. And I am standing inside of a house that is from a past. A more beautiful idyllic past. I'm a young girl. A silly girl. A girl who needs much more knowledge about the world but my mind, my mind is the one of a woman, Mrs. Butler…or am I still….Rhett fell out of love with me and I'm standing here about to make a fool of myself or maybe I already have.

I hear Ashley's younger voice, his voice which has been untouched by that stupid pointless war.

"Why, Scarlett!" he says and I see him peering through the crack with a quizzical smile on his face. I didn't realize the longing to remain friends with him but this time I just know I don't love him as anything more than a brother, a childhood playmate. I want to wish him the best with Melly. Melly, does she hate me? Will we even get close after….after I don't marry Charles. If I don't marry Charles then Wade won't exist but he never was really a happy child. Maybe this time it's okay to be selfish.

"Who are you hiding from – Charles or the Tarletons?"

I really did have a lot of men around me trying to affect my heart when I was younger. Ashley was not one of them and this time my emotions are different but the way I must have acted at the barbecue today. He enters the room on his own this time and I look at him nervously but with sad eyes. He closes the door behind him and I…he'll think I'm crazy if I tell him that this is a dream. Why? I must be feverish. I must be unconscious or perhaps I died from an accident which would serve me right.

"What is it?" he whispers as he reaches for me and I step back. This is a dream, it has to be a dream…or a nightmare. "What is it? A secret to tell me?"

"Not a secret, no," I tell him bowing my head. "I just…I'm scared,"

"Scarlett," he laughs, "You've never been scared of anything. Why? You're braver and bolder than most men that I know. If I were to wager on a fi-"

"Yes, yes I'm scared but I'm also happy and maybe I should have said it to you before, maybe I should have…have told you openly and honestly." I take a deep breath in. Maybe I could be friends with him after all…maybe even be friends with Melly, she was the only true good woman I've known, poor silly simple Melly, too innocent and sweet for this world. "Melanie Hamilton is a…a wonderful girl and I think that you're a fine match and I…I want you to be happy. I really do."

Ashley looks at me in relief and laughs, "Why are you scared to tell me that?" He moves closer to me and reaches up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I unintentionally flinch. "Scarlet, you must know that you have all of our hearts unanimously, even mine, you've always had my heart, you know. You cut your teeth on it."

I move backwards wanting to hear something else. I know that he said that but I don't want it this time but the man I want. He doesn't want me. He won't want me even if I try to play every trick that I have up my sleeves. Ashley looks so young, so undamaged, but he's not the man I love.

"No. You have to love Melanie," I tell him and he smiles. "But…but we've always been good friends, right? We will continue to…to be friends even after your marriage?"

"You're worried that I will sacrifice our friendship?" he asks me. "Well, can you do me the favor of forgetting what I said to you and not repeating it."

"It's forgotten and forgiven," I try to assure him. I lower my head. "I want to be a good friend to you. I want to be like…like a brother or a sister to you."

I see his relieved smile, "Of course," he tells me. "If that will make you happiest."

"It will," I assure him. His friendship is most important, his and Melly's. "It will, it most definitely will."

"Then we're good friends," he assures me. "I'm so glad that you approve of Melanie. I…I know that you often ignore other women so your opinion on her matters highly," he tells me and I nod.

"Father is to announce the engagement tonight. We are to be married soon. I should have told you, but I thought that you knew. I thought everyone knew – had known for years." He says and I nod. I have known that he and Melly will be happy together for years but those aren't the years he's thinking of.

"You two are so much alike," I assure him. "A girl like me wouldn't make you happy, I'm too wild, too carefree, why she's the perfect match for you and I would consider it a great pain to not be invited to the wedding, well you will invite me, right, Ashley?"

"Of course, dear sister," he teases me and I let my shoulders sag relieved. This is what I want for him. He's absolutely right, I wouldn't be happy with him. I need someone as stubborn and opinionated as I am even if that man doesn't want someone like me. "Now, will you be okay? Care to join me downstairs?"

"I'd like just a moment or two in here," I tell him. "To gather my own thoughts, my brain is racing with them."

"Then I do wish you come talk to me soon," he says before stepping out and I look over at the fireplace. Is he there? Am I lucky enough for him to be there? She walked over to the fire and sat down beside it. She faked a look of surprise when she saw Rhett staring at her. "Do you care to listen to a girl's confessions?" she asked as she raised her eyebrow but inside she was giddy. He was here and she was going to show him how good she could be.

RHETT

Rhett blinked as he heard the conversation going on behind him and stared at his hands. These weren't the worn experienced hands he knew, they belonged to another man, from another time. He had somehow been brought back in time. It was a laugh for sure but impossible unless it was done with a devil's curse but he wasn't one for thinking much of devils or of curses.

He tuned into the conversation. This was where he met Scarlett. Where he had listened to her telling Ashley that she loved him but those weren't her words now, she was encouraging Ashley to marry Melanie and stating that she wanted to be a friend, no a sister to him. It didn't make sense to him.

As he saw her sit before the fire he realized that he still loved her and to treat her carelessly and callously would be the worst decision. This Scarlet was different but maybe she had the same fire inside.

"Well, that was a disappointing way to be woken up by a nap. Quite boring if I dare to say so," I tell her, testing her and raising an eyebrow curious to what her response will be

"Well, you did say it yourself," she replies, "and a conversation between friends? I'm sorry I couldn't pique your attention further."

"I was rather expecting a love confession with the way the two of you were talking, well more than on his side," I tell her and Scarlett turns to me. She looks horrified.

"You want that badly for me to be part of a scandal, do you, Mr. Butler?" she asks. Maybe I do but not the scandal of her loving Ashley. Maybe I can be a better man for her. Maybe this is a chance to do it over again and to love her because she desperately needs to be shown real love and not whatever flightiness she feels. "Sir, you should have made known your presence."

"Indeed?" I tease her and I can't help to tease her, she always has the most interesting reactions. "But you were the intruder. I was forced to wait for Mr. Kennedy and feeling that I was perhaps persona non grata in the back yard, I was thoughtful enough to remove my unwelcome presence here where I thought I would be undisturbed. But, alas!"

"Eavesdropper," she whispers and wraps an arm around herself. "And you're wrong, Mr. Butler…there might have been some people who wanted to have spent time with you. I can't say for the life of me who, but…"

She's so different but the real Scarlett, the one who can be selfish, arrogant, and say things that hurt people must be underneath. I go to sit with her. I look at her and she tries to look away from me. Throughout our marriage I saw her this way, wanting to look at me but not wanting to admit it.

"Miss O'Hara," I cough and she nods. "Do you know who Bonny was?"

She turns to me in shock with tears in her eyes and is completely stunned. The tears fall down and she stands up and moves away from me. It looks as if she's about to faint and she goes entirely pale.

"Rhett, don't leave. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't go…" she begs of me and I take a slow breath inward and stand up to face her. I love her. Even with what we've been through before, I love her passionately and more than a man should safely love a woman. "I'm sorry. I said such horrible, ugly things. I'm an ugly person but I want to be better and fix my ways. I really do."

I walk over to her and wrap my arms around her, bringing her head to my chest and she grabs hold of me. She sobs painfully into my chest and I have the feeling that if I was the one to walk out of that door, she would be in a rage because of me and break things because of me. I don't want to hurt her. This might be a chance to be happy with her. I won't pursue with Belle Watling this time. Bonny was so much like her.

"Rhett," she sobs. "Rhett, it's you I love. My head it wasn't letting me think and my pride, my Irish pride, my…Rhett," she sobs again. I take a step backwards and let my hands rest on her shoulders before I cup her cheek and then bring her chin up. She looks so broken.

"Are you telling me that it's me that you want because I won't hold back on loving you if you tell me yes. I won't hold back on spoiling you on -" she nods and I lean down to kiss her. She flings her arms around my neck and laughs joyously. This is what I've wanted for years and years. Her love.

As I break the kiss she puts her hand over her mouth and hiccups, her cheeks turning red as she blushes.

"Don't waste your money on me," she tells me and I stare at her, is this really Scarlett who is telling me not to spoil her. She has always loved her pretty dresses, her hats and bags, her social standing. "We'll have a house that we both love, a family together, more children this time. Oh I do hope that we have Bonny again," she says and I pull her close. "But..maybe…" she looks to the door. "Maybe we should think about this. Think what people would say. People would surely gossip."

"Let them gossip, what do you care what people say?" I ask her finally feeling that mutual love between us.

"To be with a man that I just met. I know that it'll be easy to listen to the gossip as long as I'm with you but the scorn of the town, the comments that will be carried down to our children. Why, Rhett, I don't want for things to be the same as they were. Being with you is enough." I tell him and he sighs.

"Then I suggest that we have a secret romance, call each other by false names, I'll be William and you'll be….Elizabeth seems fitting," I tell her and she smiles to me. "We'll start with letters and then with secret meetings and then in the end you will be Mrs. Butler."

She sobs again but this time I see happiness in her eyes, "Promise me?" she asks me as I see her weakness and almost shyness which she used to hide from me. "Promise that in the end I'll be Mrs. Butler?"

"Why, my dear," I tell her as I look down at her, taking my handkerchief and wiping the tears from her face. "I would sacrifice myself to the devil before I allow you to become anything else." I kiss her again and she grips to me.

Is this fortune or a gift? I don't want it to be a dream but it seems like such perfection that Scarlett loves me as I love her, Scarlett O'Hara finally loves such a cad like me.

End of Chapter One

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