Note: Thanks for all the prods and reviews. I hope to update my P&P piece soon, which technically I should have gone to first, but hey after such a long break, I had to do something that was just fun to get my writing juices going again. I wish the reason for my absence was something fun, but unfortunately it was something not-so-fun.

Sorry if it's rusty. I had imagined this chapter ending in a slightly different way, but I guess that plot point will have to wait. Cheers and happy b-day to my baby sis.

Oh and warning for some maturish passages. As always, nothing you wouldn't see on network and nothing you would see on HBO.

Melanie Hamilton Wilkes proved troublesome for Scarlett. Over the course of a couple weeks, Melanie visited Aunt Eulalie's home almost daily, some times with Honey Wilkes, occasionally with India, and most often completely alone. Her conversation was always pure and plain, her manners demure, and her clothes drab, but she consistently fawned over Scarlett, sweetly showering her with praise and pampering her sore, lonely heart. No one had ever petted Scarlett so ingeniously nor flattered her so uncompromisingly. Most days Scarlett struggled to curb her tongue, to resist rolling her eyes at the ridiculous generosity of judgment that Melanie revealed almost hourly, at the willful disregard of facts in the face of ignorance or incompetence or cruelty. Melanie saw what she wanted to see, and nothing else. Scarlett could only see what was there, and little else. When Scarlett wanted to shirk her newfound companion off, she found she could not. And in the uninviting wilds of South Carolina, Melanie's kindness quickly became a buffer she found she could not do without.

Somehow in the fervor of war and the isolation of new status and state, the two young women became friends—the one out of loyalty and compassion and the other out of desperation and boredom. Melanie started inviting Scarlett to social gatherings: a supper at her cousin's house where all the Wilkes women were staying, a luncheon with a couple other young Charleston misses, a stroll in the park, or a ride in a buggy. Slowly the trickle of callers for Scarlett picked back up, slowly the matronly migration from their hidden, high-walled parlors to Eulalie's own cloistered enclave returned, slowly, as the Charlestonians gladly embraced that darling, dear Mrs. Ashley Wilkes, they began to open their hearts again to Mrs. Rhett Butler.

Two weeks rolled into a month, the palpability of the war thickening with the humidity, ratcheting with the rising heat of summer, and Melanie Wilkes lingered in Charleston, to Scarlett's dual relief and consternation. There could not be two young married women more dissimilar in the whole of the Confederacy, and yet, there could not be two young married women seen together more frequently in those late spring days and early days of summer in 1861. The days went by in a slow, steady beat and with the slow, steady company of Melanie, Scarlett's new life in Charleston began to feel just like that—a new life. And the growing new life within her only added to the newness of her present reality.

To Scarlett's surprise, being with child proved less troublesome than she had imagined. In fact, apart from the sporadic but daily sickness and the gradual bulging of her abdomen, most of the time she could blissfully forget that she was with a child at all. And when she did remember or happen to complain, Eulalie, Melanie and even Rebekkah were so quick to drop everything to see to her comfort and spoil her that she found she would rather choose to remember than to forget.

In the first week of July Scarlett received a telegram—a telegram that sent chills and fire coursing through her heart. It told her that Rhett would be coming home. Since discovering that she was going to be having his baby, Scarlett's wish to see Rhett again had grown, ballooning from a nebulous, ardent desire to a consuming need. Her body was changing, plumping up and expanding out and so too was her heart. She didn't know what the emotions charging her insides and igniting her mind meant, could not articulate them any better than she could articulate the philosophies of the Ancients, but she understood that they sprang from a deep place within her core, a place she had never known existed prior to knowing Rhett. A desire to know him, to understand this man that had come so quickly and stealthily into her life, only to leave her within a week, his brief interactions with her altering every fiber and feeling that made her who she was, filled up her senses as fully and tangibly as the thick, maritime air. More questions about the family whose blood would flow in her child's veins, more curiosities about the strange, complicated Butler clan only added to her need to have Rhett at her side.

Scarlett had not seen Rhett's mother since that brief visit by Eleanor, had thankfully never run into Rhett's father, but a week before receiving Rhett's telegram she had seen his siblings. She had been out walking with Melanie and Honey and had almost collided with the Butlers. She had been distracted by a bakery window, salivating over the cascade of sweets and pastries on display, when someone had brushed against her shoulder. Looking up, she had started as Rockwell had bowed to her, his gilded hair shimmering in the late afternoon sun and his deep voice rushing over her as a familiar wind. Something about his polite excuses had irked her, and with feminine acuteness, she had suspected that he had startled her on purpose, hoping for some malicious reason to catch her attention.

Keeping her head high and her brow wrinkled, she had skirted around him, only to find herself face to face with Rosemary. The young girl had nodded shyly at her, and then curtsied to Melanie and Honey. A fiery jealousy had crept its way underneath Scarlett's skin at Rosemary's pretty poise. It was no secret, not even to one as relegated to the fringes of society as Scarlett was, that Charles Hamilton spent almost as much time at the Butler's mansion on the Battery as he did with his commander. And it irked Scarlett to no end, though why that should be she had no idea. So without a backward glance, she had trounced away from the irksome Rosemary and her irksome brother, leaving Melanie and Honey to follow her angry wake. When the two Wilkes women had caught up with her, they had possessed the good sense to remain silent on their impromptu run-in with Scarlett's in-laws.

Scarlett still did not understand why Rockwell's dance with her had been such a departure of good manners and an unmitigated scandal, but she had stopped asking any questions about that. Within a couple weeks it had become no more than a ridiculous mystery and a memory that faded in importance and vividness as the days sloughed by. She had stopped plotting to go home to Tara, too, though she had finally received her first letters from home and suffered a pang of longing to see those whitewashed walls and rolling red dirt hills every time she re-read her mother's elegant cursive. She was in Charleston and for the foreseeable future, in Charleston she would remain.

Rockwell had since gone, gone with all the other soldiers, including Charles, trekking their way northward to Virginia. "Good riddance," Scarlett had venomously thought when Eulalie had informed her of the troops' movements. "And good luck on surviving the battlefield, Rockwell." She had enough on her plate without worrying over what possible machinations the likes of Rockwell Butler had brewing, or the silly infatuation of her former beau, as she tried to wriggle her way into a stiff society, endure the kindness of her only friend, and accept the strange reality of her nauseous, swelling gut. Not to mention the imminent return of her husband.

~Souffle~

Scarlett sat on a bench, the shade of palm trees covering her head and a welcome sea breeze slipping over her skin. The sun was setting at her back, casting oblong ripples of light onto the calm watery expanse. Rhett had telegrammed that he would likely make port at twilight, and so for the past three evenings Scarlett had held a vigil on this exact spot, waiting for the ships to pass clandestinely into the harbor, hoping to spy her husband's sloop on the horizon. Melanie rested beside her, fanning herself with a fallen leaf and intermittently glancing at her friend, a warm smile on her thin lips.

"I'm sure today will be the day he arrives," Melanie said, casting her large eyes back out over the sea. "It's been four days already."

Scarlett nodded, too hot, too hopeful, and too dreadful to reply. The way her heart dipped into her abdomen every time she thought of Rhett's kisses, the way her blood slowed to a heavy crawl every time she remembered his touch, the way her body seemed to miss his body more and more with each passing night made her feel always on alert, always unsettled. Earthy and reactive she could not translate the physicality of her feelings into thoughts. There was nothing cerebral about her instincts, only a visceral intuition that if she did not gain some foothold of control before his return she would never be able to reclaim control again. She wanted to know when he was coming. She wanted to see him before he saw her. For once she wanted to be ready for him.

The humidity made her stomach twist with bile, and she had to swallow back the sick from rising. She leaned back and closed her eyes to quell the nausea. Melanie had insisted on tagging along this evening, and Scarlett had relented, if for no other reason than to avoid Rebekkah's fussing. "You shouldn' be scampering around all day when you're 'specting. Mista' Rhett doesn' actually 'spect you to be waitin' for him neither—trust me, he's more bark than bite." Words of that sort had been the only sort of words coming out of the overly-protective maid's mouth now for days and Scarlett was more than glad to be rid of the cajoling for a couple precious hours, even if the cost was to baste in the evening glow and suffer Melanie's wholesome conversation.

Scarlett's eyes were still closed, Melanie's happy chatter washing over her, when the wind suddenly shifted. The change in the breeze drew open her eyes. Blinking, she looked out across the harbor and immediately saw Rhett.

He stood at the helm of his ship, the wind rippling his clothes and ruffling his hair. His skin was a dark brown, the deep color making his teeth peeking out from his distant smile glint brilliantly white. There was something carefree and vibrant about him, some energy that leapt out from his black gaze and sun-soaked skin. It was something enticing and frightening and alive, so very alive. Scarlett couldn't take her eyes off it, off him.

Scarlett heard the splash of an anchor and the calls of Rhett's crew. The sloop bobbed to a halt. Melanie rustled beside her. Unmoving Scarlett watched Rhett and his shipmates disappear only to reappear moments later walking down the gangplank. Sudden commotion stirred in the air as a woman and child ran out from the shadowy line of palm trees and threw themselves at one of the wobbly sailors. Laughter and slaps on the back from the other men broke out amongst the small crowd. Rhett's gaze locked with Scarlett's and everything and everyone else faded away.

She had been here before—when two summers ago a man haloed in sunlight and grace had jogged up the front porch of Tara and made her heart freeze and her imagination burst with colorful, girlish dreams—only, only this time it was different, only this time it was something so much more. The man walking toward her now was not a fair-weather knight; he was a blackguard, a renegade, a pirate. Apart from his finely-groomed mustache, Rhett looked nothing like the ideal Southern gentleman he had ever appeared to be. His clothes were simple sailor garb, a plain white shirt and black sea pants. His hair was long, curling along his neck and over his ears, unkempt by the wind. But it was more than that, it was the dare in his devil grin, the jauntiness in his elegant swagger, the careless way his obsidian eyes stripped her down and to her shock and shame and delight wish that it were his hands instead of his eyes that were laying her bare.

Melanie stood up, and barely aware, Scarlett followed. Her heart was beating so quickly she was sure it had stopped. Her skin was clammy, her face flushed. The swirling in her stomach now was not from nausea but nerves. She knew she wanted this man. She knew she needed this man. And as Rhett paused to make a slight bow to Melanie, Scarlett knew she loved him.

Rhett turned back to her, his eyes sparkling and his grin lopsided. "I'll admit, my dear, I didn't expect you to fly at me the way that Carter's wife and daughter just did, but I was hoping for a little Southern warmth."

Before she could speak, before she could think, Rhett's arms were wrapped around her, his body was pressed against hers, and his lips were kissing her own. That sweet darkness that had enveloped her months ago, that sweet darkness she had feared she had imagined crashed over her once more. It was the blackness in a thunder cloud, the electric unknown of a wild squall. And she reveled in it. She kissed Rhett back, kissed him as she had never kissed him before. It was the first time in her life she had ever kissed a man that she knew she loved, and all the words she could never articulate, all the feelings she could never define, swarmed together and flew out as heat and passion and desire. In that moment she would have cast herself off into the darkness, thrown herself bodily into the storm, but at that precipice of abandonment, Rhett pulled away and pulled her back, a question in his eyes.

Scarlett stared back at him, her heart in her trembling, blazed face. Surely he must know. Surely he could read her mind and know her heart. He studied her for a breathless moment until, without a word, he moved back and slid his questioning gaze to Melanie.

"You'll pardon me, Mrs. Wilkes, but I'm certain you understand my outburst of public affection."

Melanie shyly scoffed at him, mumbling some reply. Rhett's scrutiny softened faintly as his eyes narrowed on the blushing heart-shaped face. Smirking, he glanced at Scarlett and back at Melanie. The grin immediately flattened into an expression of respect, his voice infused with the same sincerity.

"I must be a fortunate man. I was only marginally hopeful to find one fair Georgian maiden awaiting my return, imagine my happy surprise at finding two."

Melanie blushed even deeper, and Scarlett disliking the flattery wasted on her friend, stepped forward. Nothing could pull her from her speechlessness as effectively as jealously could and she briskly explained Melanie's recent and temporary migration from Atlanta. She stuttered over Charles' name, hating the amused gleam that sparked in Rhett's eyes at the mention of her former beau and almost-fiancé. She finished her explanation rather lamely, a cloud of perplexity and yearning overlaying her mind. All she wanted was to be alone with Rhett and yet she was desperately frightened to be alone with him. In a halting voice she added as a matter of course that Melanie's Charleston cousins had arranged for her to go directly home from the docks.

"In fact, I believe that is their manservant and buggy just across the way," Scarlett said, pointing to a spindly chauffeur atop an open black buggy grounding to a halt a few yards from them.

Rhett nodded and muttered, almost to himself, "If politics make for strange bedfellows, war makes for even stranger ones." He shot his gaze again briefly toward Scarlett before adopting the most tender, earnest tone she had ever heard him use to congratulate Melanie on her nuptials, thank her again for attending his own, and ask how long she intended on staying in Charleston, especially now that the militia had cleared out and her brother was no longer within reach.

"I don't really know Captain Butler. I do dearly miss Atlanta, though. As much as I adore Charleston I don't think I will be able to stay here much longer without becoming completely useless from homesickness."

"Oh something tells me it would take more than homesickness to render you useless, Mrs. Wilkes, particularly since it seems to me that my wife has found a use for you here."

"A use for me? But how silly. We're only friends."

"Precisely."

Melanie smiled timidly, looking somewhat mystified. Scarlett smarted under Rhett's silky insinuations, insinuations about what she wasn't entirely sure, but she could just feel the double meaning in his perfectly polite words. He flashed another sidelong glance at her and asked Melanie if he could escort her to her waiting ride. Melanie's dark head dipped downward and her slender hand slipped into Rhett's elbow. Scarlett watched in bemused annoyance. Their silhouettes wavered oddly against the boardwalk in the late crimson sunset. The incongruity in size between Rhett's hulking mass and Melanie's willowy frame was almost comical; their respective appearances and respectability even more so. Rhett handed Melanie over to the chauffeur and waved her away. He was scratching his chin and eyeing Scarlett curiously as he walked leisurely back over to her.

"Well, Mrs. Butler," he drawled, turning his mouth down, "not in a million years would I have bet on Mrs. Ashley Wilkes being present at my homecoming. I wonder what other cards you have up your sleeve."

"I…Welcome home, Rhett," was all she could say, annoyance forgot.

~Souffle~

The honeymoon suite seemed smaller when Scarlett stepped back over the threshold for the first time in months. The luxuriousness of the décor and the beauty of the architecture less refined, more worn. Her trunks were already stacked in the faraway corner, a fire lit in the grate, but the familiarity of the scene did not comfort her. Despite the heat of the hearth, despite the swelter of the summer twilight, the room felt cold and impersonal compared to the cozy, cramped quarters of Eulalie's house.

Scarlett ran her gloved hand negligently along the writing desk, waiting for Rhett to join her. He had accompanied her to the room only to unceremoniously leave her within seconds, without any excuse or reason for his swift departure. She watched her clothed fingertips streak lines in the dusty mahogany, wondering how and when she should tell Rhett that she loved him, how and when she should tell him that she was carrying his child. Their carriage ride had been short and uneventful, Rhett blandly asking about the comings and goings of the past couple months and Scarlett unable to keep her mind on anything but what he was asking her.

Her head was bowed and her back to the door when she heard him sweep into the room. Her breath caught as a rush of memories stole over her mind and through her veins. She recalled the times he had materialized at all hours of the day and night and like a phantom took her to a strange, thrilling new place. Frozen from fear and longing she smelled him before she saw him. The scent of tangy soap and fresh laundry tingled in her nose and she spun around. His hair was slicked back and damp and he wore a fresh shirt and pants.

"Ironic or not, I wanted to wash the sea off of me," he said. "I would have cut my hair, too, but a man only has so much restraint."

"I…I don't mind."

"I believe you."

"Oh."

Scarlett's voice was hardly more than a whisper, her breath baited with desire. Rhett's eyes gleamed in the dusky glow and he reached out to touch her face. His thumb tenderly traced the contours of her cheek, his eyes her face.

"Something's changed. Something's different about you, Scarlett."

A confession quivered to her lips. The words wouldn't come, though. None of her boldness could combat the surge of fiery want that had captured her senses. Rhett cupped the back of her neck, slipped his other arm around her waist, and drew her into his embrace.

All tenderness was forgotten. The soft hues of twilight were pitched into a black, swirling abyss. This was the kiss from earlier in the evening magnified with the intimacy of night and seclusion. Everything Scarlett had been feeling for months, everything she had wanted to say for hours translated into a singular energy to show him with her body what he meant to her heart. She forgot about the sickness that had plagued her intermittently for the past two months, those feelings bowing as all else must bow to her need to be in the moment with Rhett.

His hands were all over her, the brush of his fingertips circles of fire on her skin and the pressure of his hold the sweet vice of desire. And almost unaware of her own frenzied actions, she was the creator as much as the object of the ardor. She tore at Rhett's shirt, spreading her palms against his wide, bared chest, her fingers combing through his mass of chest hair, hungrily keeping his flesh flush against her body, pulling him closer and closer, burning from the heat of his skin, the prickle of his caress, and the rawness of his fervor.

They were at the wall, on the bed, the cool of the linens underneath and the warmth of Rhett above. She clutched at him, wanting—oh wanting things she knew must have a name and that name could only be Rhett's. She sighed out his name, turning her head to the side and breathing into the pillow. This was what she had always wanted. This was what she had always needed; a place, a person whose passion matched her own, whose lust for life brimmed with the same dark cravings.

When it was over, Rhett's heavy panting tickled over her skin and he whispered into her ear, "I've missed you."

Scarlett looked back up at him, his expression nothing but shadows in the dimness and whispered, "I love you."

Without responding, Rhett rolled away from her and lit the lamp beside the bed. The hiss of the wick sputtered loudly in the thick quiet. Something was wrong—something was always wrong when she declared her love. Her confession had just sort of slipped out and she clamped her lips together, suddenly feeling exposed. Scarlett scooted up, gathering the sheets to her chest as she sat up. He still hadn't replied and now her heart was racing with trepidation. She peeked over at Rhett, watching him light a cigar and take a long, measured drag. The sound of his low breath unnerved her, his silence unnerved her. She couldn't take it. A cool current of anger was starting to well up inside her.

"Aren't you—aren't you going to say anything? Didn't you hear me? I told you I love you."

He exhaled just as slowly as he had inhaled and looked over at her, his brown face inscrutable. "Yes, I heard you."

"Well? Don't you...don't you have something to say to me?"

He took another luxuriant drag and flicked the embers off the side of the bed. "I...believe you."

For an instant there was a resurgence of that dense silence between them and then Scarlett's shock fell away, the anger boiled to the fore. Chaotic thoughts ripped through her mind and tore from her lips as injured, furious words.

"You believe me? You believe me? I tell you I love you and you tell me you believe me?"

"It's categorically better than not believing you."

"Am I supposed to be glad that you don't think I'm a liar?"

"Honesty is not exactly your most obvious virtue, my dear."

He smirked at her. He had the gall to sit there, with that cigar dangling from his mouth and the film of his sweat still on her skin and smirk at her. She thought of the way she had given herself over to him. The reckless, disgraceful way she had thrown herself at him. Latent shame rose up, years of the teachings of chastity and modesty pummeling through the haze of love. None of the happy exhilaration from the last hour could squelch the rage tinged with guilt spiraling through her.

"You did this to me, you lowdown scoundrel. You wanted me to act like some wanton, common creature and believe I was in love with you. How could I fall for such a trick? So you seduced me and ruined me and made me think that this was love—but it's not. It's just a nasty, twisted…"

Her hand flew over her mouth, swiftly. She barely had time to lean over the bed before the bile hurled itself from her mouth and onto the floor. She retched and retched, Rhett handing her a bowl at some point and holding back her hair. Finally, after a timeless period of misery, she stopped gagging and swatted his hand away. This was the most miserable moment of her life. And how horrible that it should happen right now, now of all moments! Never again could she look at Rhett in the eye. Never again would she live down this infamy.

Mortified she crumpled back onto the bed and yanked the sheets completely over her red, splotchy face. She felt Rhett's weight press down on the mattress beside her. Oh! Wouldn't he just go away? He had made it clear he only wanted her for his nefarious, carnal reasons. Couldn't he allow her to wallow in her humiliation alone?

"Scarlett," his voice gently pled, "won't you look at me?"

"Why? So you can mock me?"

"Don't be childish. Why would I mock you?"

"I don't know why you are mean. I only know that you are mean."

"I'm sorry for having a bit of…fun with you just now. I promise to be on my best behavior if you come out from under the sheets."

"I don't believe you."

She heard him chuckle lightly at her. His amusement made her embarrassment start to curdle back into anger. How dare he laugh at her! It was his fault she was in this mess. It was his fault she was sick.

"You're a cad," she spat, glaring at him through the linens.

"Yes, but I believe you owe it to me to tell me what else I am, or rather, what else I will be."

"I don't owe you anything."

"Perhaps, but don't you think you might regret it if you weren't the one to tell me you're pregnant?"

"Oh," she moaned, unable to say anything else. Pregnant sounded so terrible and permanent. No one ever used that word around her, except in the occasional indelicate, drunken slip-up.

"Come, honey, can't you look at me now?"

There was some vibration in his voice that she hadn't heard before. It reminded her of her pa's voice when he spoke to her mother—kind, soft, bordering on reverential. Slowly she lowered the sheet to just underneath her chin. Orange light from the kerosene lamp flickered across Rhett's dark face and white teeth. He was smiling.

"There now," he said in that same gentle tone. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Are you…are you happy?" she asked, mystified by the softness of his smile.

"I think the better question is why aren't you."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do, but I won't press the point, not right now. So I suppose I'll have to answer your question: Yes, I'm happy."

"You are?"

She hadn't known what reaction to expect from Rhett when she finally told him about her condition, but happiness had not been the emotion she would have guessed at first, or last for that matter. She never supposed a man as rough and independent as Rhett would be happy about being tied down by a child. Men like him usually loathed the clingy little brats.

"I like children," Rhett shrugged, baffling her even further.

"You do?"

"I married you, didn't I?"

Scarlett glowered and opened her mouth, ready to spew her venom onto his smarmy grin, but Rhett leaned over and placed a finger over her lips, his expression softening.

"Please don't say another thing that you may regret later on." He dropped his hand away and leaned back. "Trust me Scarlett, out of all the surprises hoisted on me this evening, the fact that you are having a baby is the least unexpected."

He roved his gaze up and down her thinly-veiled body. "The very least," he muttered. Laughing quietly, he jerked his head and rose from the bed. Blankly she watched him as he slipped on his pants and told her to get dressed so he could ring the bell for the maid.