Chapter 3: Jar of Hearts

Scarlett paced in her entryway. Back and forth, back and forth her feet shuffled across the worn, thick carpeting. Her long dress streaked wide tracks into its grooves. She didn't know how long she had been waiting for her son to come home now.

Ella had gone upstairs to bed hours ago, her freckled face spotted with tears. She had taken the news of Rhett's reappearance and her brother's disappearance badly. Scarlett had announced to her the truth of Wade's absence from their Christmas supper the minute they had returned home from Pitty's, returned to a home where Wade was not sick in his bed as Scarlett had earlier claimed. Immediately Ella had dissolved into tears, and awkwardly Scarlett had tried to comfort her daughter, pat her red, thick hair and shush her hoarse sobs, until finally she could take the shuddering girl in her arms no more. With strained gentleness, she had kissed her goodnight and pushed her up to bed.

Soon Ella's muffled cries had stopped. Her raspy snores had started drifting throughout the noiseless mansion. And in that moment, not a second sooner and not a moment later, Scarlett had finally been able to consider her own feelings, to hear her own screaming thoughts. She hadn't liked what she had heard. Would Wade find Rhett? What would Rhett do? What would Wade do? Should she go look for them—for him? But where?

The snow still drifted down, the night grew darker and colder. Over and over and over again Scarlett listened to these furious, futile questions, her feet trailing the torment of her mind. It was all she had been able to hear now for far too long.

Suddenly she heard something else—feet on the front steps, voices at the door, the set of a key in the lock. She froze, folding her arms over her body and watched the door swing open.

The strange outline of two men clumped together greeted her vision. Wade's head hung down and his body slumped. Her son's skin was as pale as the snow on the ground, and his legs drooped as melting ice. A wave of panic stole over Scarlett and she rushed to the door.

"What did you do to him?" she asked, her hard eyes flashing to Rhett for the first time. In the shadow of the threshold she couldn't make out his expression. Either way she wanted to rake her nails into whatever was on his face.

"I didn't do anything to him, Scarlett," he grunted, catching Wade as he slipped further down his shoulder. "Whiskey did."

Her eyes bulged and she shot them back to Wade. Drunk? Her son was drunk? With the stench of fear rolling away she could smell the alcohol—that putrid, tangy scent. Her tongue slathered with saliva. It had been years since she had touched a real drink. Wade moaned then, somewhere between a gasp and a groan. It sobered her enough to be angry again.

"You got my son drunk?"

"If you will hold off your attack until after I deposit him somewhere inside, I will gladly stay to stand for your firing squad, Mrs. Butler."

There it was—that endless supply of jeering mockery. The annoyance crawled over her flesh.

"Don't you dare call me Mrs. Butler," she said, turning away with a glare. "Come on, lay him on the sofa in the study."

Scarlett walked briskly to the closest door and held it open. Heaving, Rhett dragged Wade into the house. As he passed by her, his shoulder bumped against her arm. The touch was accidental. It was electric. Sweat pooled in her palms and armpits. She clenched her fists. "Pardon me," Rhett mumbled, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. He whisked past her, and she spun back into the entry way.

The silver of the moon streamed in from the arching windows and kerosene lamps flickered all around. The draft from the outside chilled the cavernous space. Only feet away, but the air was blessedly cooler, a ray of daylight in this dark midnight. She took in a couple deep, calming breaths. Wicking the moisture from her brow, she heard two thuds as Wade's boots hit the floor. She was ready for Rhett when he loped back out into the open hallway.

He halted a few feet from her and his eyes quickly grazed over her. She wrapped her arms about her, thankful that she was still in her high-necked green frock, and risked returning his razor gaze. In the metallic glow she noticed a purple welt across his brown face, from his ear to his jaw. The unfathomable struck through her stony rage and drew a chary question from her lips.

"You let Wade hit you?"

Rhett stuck his hands into his pockets. "I wouldn't say I let him, no."

"He fought you?"

"He landed one solid, mean right hook before the men I was playing poker with tackled him." Rhett flicked his head back toward the study. "If I hadn't seen him at the train station with Ella the other day, I wouldn't even have known who was attacking me. It took four grown men to hold him back. He's not the boy I used to know."

"He's not a boy at all," Scarlett said coolly.

"No, he is not."

Rhett's voice had dropped, his mouth had turned down. It was such a simple gesture, such a simple change in tone—but it was too familiar, even after all these years it was too familiar. Scarlett flattened the urge to flee, to hurl herself as far away from him as possible. She dug her nails into her hidden fists, her arms twisted tightly against her chest.

"I think you better go now. Thank you for bringing Wade home—even if he is not completely well."

Rhett nodded, but did not move. She swallowed. She knew he was watching her, watching her and probably understanding her.

"I didn't get him drunk, Scarlett."

"I don't care right now Rhett. It's late and I'm tired."

"You can thank the men who I was beating poker at—they wanted to show Wade their gratitude for knocking me to the floor and ending their suffering, or at least their bank accounts' suffering."

Scarlett sighed, a ragged breath and motioned to the door. "Please, just go Rhett. I'm sure Wade will tell me what transpired in the morning. I don't need you—"

"No, you don't need me, do you?"

There was something in his voice, something in his face. It wasn't the glassy haze of alcohol, either. The whites of his eyes were as pure as his irises were black. No tremor shook his hands, no puffiness bulged the under of his short lashes. Vaguely she wondered if he had been drinking at all tonight—or for months for that matter.

"I have no interest in discussing anything with you. It's too late."

She started to walk away, but his hand lashed out and snatched her wrist, yanking her to a halt. Her breath caught.

"Just how late is it Scarlett?" he asked.

She glanced down at his hard grip and up into his limpid, obsidian eyes, hating the flames that were licking the inside of her belly, the fire creeping into her veins.

"Don't touch me."

He smirked, the whites of his teeth just bared beneath his mustache. She flung her wrist and Rhett released her, but his massive bulk still blocked her way. This was the last thing she had wanted tonight, the last thing she had ever wanted again.

"Let me by, Rhett."

"Just answer my question and I will. How late is it?"

Scarlett stared at him, the exhaustion in her bones. "I don't know—go look at the grandfather clock in the parlor before you leave. It hasn't been moved in ten years."

A light sparked in his gaze, a smile stirred on his lips. "It's a relief to know some things never change. You're still as literal as the day I met you."

"And you're still as irksome."

His smile widened, but she hadn't been joking. Her entire body throbbed with fatigue from her crown to her toes. She massaged her temples and moved back a few steps.

"What do you want Rhett? Why are you here?"

"I like Atlanta. I always have."

"I mean in my home, as you well know."

"It may be your home, Scarlett, but the deed is in my name."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact."

She rolled her head back and looked at him, her eyes clean of emotion. Her heart was not in this fight, she had surrendered it long ago. "Fine, move in here. You obviously still have a key."

"With you?"

"I wouldn't live under the same roof with you if it were the last place on earth with a roof."

This had been spoken wearily, but she had meant every word of it. Nothing would tempt her to inflict his presence on her in such an intimate, familial way. Even if Tara were burned to the ground, she wouldn't do it. She would sooner move in with Ashley and India before she ever shared a home with Rhett again.

Rhett was laughing softly at her. The sound didn't grate on her as it once had—what was any sound, any word compared to the emptiness of the last six years? She clutched her arms again around her abdomen, holding at bay the memories. That space blown apart by his desertion had been filled, with joys and pains and a life without him. That was her reality, not this nightmare of his return.

"You know," he said, gingerly rubbing the bruise across his jaw. "Wade wouldn't even look at me at first tonight—not after he had punched me. But, after a couple rounds of whiskey, I couldn't get him to shut up."

"Is that so?

He dropped his hand from his jaw, and drawled on. "He's been holding back his tongue for years, keeping secrets he wouldn't have shared tonight if he had remembered who was on the barstool beside him, I would wager. And as you are aware, I never bet on something unless the odds are in my favor to win. Of course, there are always exceptions."

His cool gaze floated over her face, the lightness of it tickled across her skin as a phantom's breath. She melted into the wall as he took two steps closer to her. His distinct scent wrapped around her.

"You haven't answered my question, Scarlett—how late is it? And as thick as you can be, I know you don't actually believe I'm referring to the time of day."

"That doesn't mean I know what you are talking about, or that even if I did I would want to talk to you about it."

"What about what I want?"

"What about it?" She glared and straightened her spine. "What do I care what you want?"

There it was again—that something in his expression. If she had seen that shadow cross any one else's face, she would have called it fear. Whatever the emotion, it wasn't in his flat voice.

"Do you care what your son wants?"

The shift in conversation threw her, but not enough to confuse her, not enough to put aside her rising, protective wrath. "How you have the gall to bring up my children, like you know them better than me."

"You've changed, Scarlett, but that doesn't mean you've changed what kind of mother you are."

"You don't know me."

"Don't I?"

"My children are all that I have—they are all that I have ever had. Maybe I didn't always realize that, but I do now. So don't you stand there and ask me if I care what my son wants. Who do you think you are?"

"I know exactly who I am, Mrs. Butler. Do you know who you are? Do you know who your son is or what he wants?"

"I know he doesn't want you in his life," she said coldly.

Rhett's intent eyes met hers, and she waited, suddenly anxious, eager, alert. Her mind was too tired to cling to the anger, her body too tense to clutch at the fury.

"True, but he wants more than me out of his life, Scarlett. He wants someone else in your life."

"What are you—"

"He told me he wishes you would just divorce me already and marry a man who deserves you."

Scarlett sucked in her breath, surprised. Her marriage was a status to her and nothing more; an inconvenience at times, but other than that, no more significant than the letters in her name. The continuation of it was only due to the possible damage to Wade and Ella's reputation that might come from her divorce. Wade must know that, surely he must realize that.

These last six years Scarlett had worked hard, harder than she had ever worked in some ways, to crawl her way back into the good graces of Atlanta's Old Guard. Despite the general hatred and disapproval for Rhett, she wouldn't jeopardize the tiny corner of acceptance and friendship she had hollowed out for her small family for revenge or vindication or respite. She had been selfish for too many years. If her penance for her younger self's societal sins was her effectual widowhood, so be it. She was paying for all her sins now, anyway. Her life was her purgatory. For no one else than for her children would she have remained, silent month after silent month, legally tied to Rhett, though. For no one else, not even all the saints, would she have sacrificed her pride. But as for love, she was finished with romance.

She blinked back the wonder and blinked up at Rhett, willing him to leave, silently begging him to read her mind and just leave. But if he did understand the plea in her wide, swimming eyes, he ignored it.

"Wade told me you had been through enough in your life Scarlett and that you should be with someone who would take care of you for a change, someone who would love you for you." Up until now Rhett's voice had been as smooth as still waters, but as he went on, that liquid softness began to ripple: "I believe his exact words were that you deserved a man who would love you as deeply as a man can love a woman. Wise words from a young man who, as far as I know, has never been in love."

"Rhett…" she began, needing him to leave, because the longer he stayed, his scent, his breath, his body near her, she started to need something else from him, something Ashley's kiss had resurrected in her. Rhett silenced her with a wave of his hand.

"I'm going Scarlett. But there was that one thing I wanted to know—which you have not answered me, and maybe therein is my answer. How late is it? Do you want what Wade wants for you? Do you want a divorce?"

She was drained; whatever strength left after this long day was oozing out from her. She slouched against the wall and looked into his inscrutable eyes. The eyes she knew as well as she didn't know.

"Is this why you are here Rhett? You want a divorce?" She paused, searching her heart for more than a whisper of envy or an echo of interest. Nothing was there, not in the midst of her exhaustion. "Do you want to marry someone else?"

A ghost of a grin wavered over his full lips. "I was never a marrying man, and after being married to you, I'm even less of one."

She nodded, her moody gaze sliding past his shoulder to the dining room door, to the stairs, to the setting of her greatest defeat. "You aren't very good at being married, that's for sure."

"No, but regardless of what happened, and for what it's worth, I don't regret asking you to marry me."

Her bleary eyes trailed back to him. The moon must have set behind some clouds, or the eaves of the house. Only the tangerine gold of the kerosene lamps washed over his face now, the orangish glow bled youth and vigor into his face. It reminded her of everything he had stolen from her, of all the broken promises he had left at her feet when he had run away.

"I regret it," she said softly.

The illusion of his youthfulness crumbled. Rhett looked as old as Scarlett felt. She pushed herself away from the wall and pushed back her shoulders, her face leeched of light.

"I hope you didn't come back for me Rhett, because if you did, you shouldn't have come back at all."

Tiredly she moved away from him, and as before, his iron hand stopped her retreat, her wrist wrapped in his vice. She attempted to shake off his hold again, but his fingers turned to steel. Sharper than lightening he grabbed her other arm and propelled her back, her feet tripping backwards until she slammed into the wall. Her cry was a gasp, shock and terror roiling in her blood. She tried to shove him away, to bend her arms, or kick him, but Rhett swerved out of her reach and pinned her into submission. Both were sweating and panting by the time the struggle finished.

"Let me go, Rhett," she seethed. "Let me go!"

"I don't want to do this Scarlett, but you aren't giving me many options."

"I will scream and so help me I'll wake Wade and let him finish the job he started. Get off me!"

She bucked but Rhett leaned into her, trapping her with his weight. His shoulder pressed into her chest, his hands constrained her arms. His face was next to hers, the rough of his stubble burned her cheek and heat of his breath scorched her ear.

"From what Wade let slip, you weren't this reluctant with Mr. Wilkes this afternoon."

She stopped fighting, her mouth wrinkled in disgust. This was too much—too much. She had already been here before, with Rhett, with Ashley. Her earlier, forlorn thought came back to her, arousing her desperation: these two men were bound, sent by some devil, to haunt her steps and damn her days with darkness.

"I have nothing to say to you about Ashley," she said in a low voice. "Now get off me."

The blood was collecting at her wrists, a wet film gathering between his fingers and her skin. There was anger and violence in their brutal contact, and to her shame, desire. Rhett leaned away, just enough to focus his dark eyes on her quivering ones.

"Are you sharing his bed?"

"I will tell you what I told Wade—that's none of your concern."

"It is if I'm not around and you get pregnant."

"Even then, it would not be your concern."

"Unless you use my money to pay for your bastard."

"I haven't touched your money in years—and you know it."

"Yes, something that honestly always confused me, but if you have been lying with Wilkes it confuses me a little less."

"I didn't want to owe you anything, not a dime if I could help it, and I don't—certainly not an explanation for what I've been doing for the past six years or with whom I've been doing them."

Suddenly she twisted her arms. Rhett's reflexes were faster than hers, though. A surge of disappointment rocked her already volatile mood. For added to her rage was a deep, vile longing, an angry humiliation. Failing to weaken his grip, to quiet the tremble in her core, she attacked him with the only weapons in her arsenal. Hot words frothed to her mouth, spewing from her lips as venom.

"What about you Rhett? How many other beds have you shared? How many more whores have you kept? I'd ask if you are staying with that Watling creature, but if you haven't heard, she got so drunk three years ago that she fell off her own balcony."

Rhett's body flinched, his face hardened. "No, Scarlett," he rasped into her ear. "She didn't fall, she jumped."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"Because she mailed me her suicide note."

Her astonishment overcame everything else and her body went slack. The fire in his black eyes gleamed across her vision, the dark stone of his expression glinted. And before she realized how real that new shadow on his face was, Rhett was torn away from her. Cold air blasted across her front and stunned, she watched as Wade threw Rhett down by the scruff of his collar and dropping to his knees began pummeling his stepfather, slurring curses at him and screaming at him for touching his mother.

Mesmerized by the suddenness of Wade's attack, the savagery of his assault, it took Scarlett a moment to realize Rhett wasn't even trying to fight back, and that Wade wasn't close to slowing down. Her throat constricted and she stumbled to her son, falling beside him and tugging at his coat.

"Wade! Wade! You must stop, darling. You must stop!"

"No mother!"

"Wade!" she cried, wrapping her arms around his back. "Stop!"

Her eyes were closed, her cheek against his shoulder, and she felt rather than saw his arms drop to his sides. She listened to the rapid beating of his heart, heard the hoarse breathing of Rhett, and the distant snores of Ella—thank heaven her daughter hadn't woken up! That would have been more than she could bear.

Wade clambered up, and Scarlett slipped away from his rising body. Opening her shattered eyes, she stared up at her son. Red splotches dotted his face and blood his hands. He looked down at her, his eyes glazed, and then back over to Rhett, who had scooted up against the bottom stair, his legs sprawled out in a 'v,' his head down, and his hands up over his face.

"Why is he here?" Wade asked, his voice scratchy.

"He brought you home."

"Oh," he breathed.

Suddenly he swayed, his leg shaking against Scarlett's shoulder. "I don't feel so well, mother," he mumbled, before collapsing heavily onto the thick carpet.

Instantly Scarlett scrambled over to him. "Please, please, let it just be the whiskey," she silently prayed. She could not take any more today. Relief spilled into her as she put her face over his mouth and felt the blow of his shallow breathing and the movement of his chest. She bit her trembling lip and stroked his cold, flushed cheek.

"Roll him onto his side, Scarlett."

She flipped her head up. She had nearly forgotten Rhett was there. And the sight of his puffy, misshapen face and the droplets of crimson trickling down his torn suit made her wish he wasn't.

"Roll him onto his side," he repeated. "Or he might choke on his own vomit."

Scarlett did not hesitate now. She wasn't a big enough fool to ignore his advice, especially about what to do with drunken men. She heaved Wade over and shakily stood, reluctantly turning back to Rhett.

"Do you need me to get you anything? I don't have any whiskey in the house anymore—but there's some sherry or red wine in the pantry."

'Wine will do, if that's all you have."

She nodded and went to go get some from the kitchen. As she moved through the empty, dark house she tried to make sense of everything Rhett had told her. But there was no sense in what he had said. Just as there was no sense in him still being here. She would let him have his drink, clean up his wounds, and send him on his way.

When she came back, with some towels and a glass brimming with wine, her jaw was set and her eyes were clear. She handed him first the drink, which he downed in one clean swallow, and then the towels.

"Thank you," he muttered, dabbing at the blood dripping from his ear. "I told you Wade has a mean right hook. He could be a boxer, if he ever lost his property and was strapped for cash."

Amazed by the crooked smile on his face, she could only shrug her shoulders. Rhett moved his arm to press the towel into the other side of his jaw, and his sleeve slipped down his wrist.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"It looks like you have numbers branded into your skin," she said, pointing to the blue marks on his forearm.

Rhett did not immediately respond. He swiped away some more streaks of blood and slowly staggered up. His eyes locked with hers, blank circles of black.

"They are numbers."

"Why?"

"Because that's what happens when you go to prison."

His bland statement rocked her with the force of a hammering rod. Nothing he had said thus far, nothing she had seen, had shocked her more. Rhett was watching her closely, scrutinizing her with that old, penetrating stare. A hundred questions pelted her brain. Out of all of them, she latched onto the one that poked at her the most.

"Belle knew you were in prison?"

"Yes," Rhett sighed.

"So you told your mistress, but not your wife."

"At the time it seemed appropriate."

"And now?"

"Now it doesn't really matter. She's dead."

"I thought you said she killed herself."

"She did."

"Why? Because she learned you were in prison?"

Rhett's gaze glimmered with something, something darker than that fleeting, unimaginable fear. And when he spoke, his reply chilled her to the core. It would haunt her.

"No, because she learned I was in prison for killing her son."

Note: And fade to black. So sorry. I will not post on this again until I have a couple chapters for ABS up. I am working on that one, but then this one just pops up. You know me, I go wild for angst. Thanks for the reviews. And yeah, I think Scarlett would be a little less impulsive after such a span of years. I also think that they wouldn't really end up together post-canon, so I have to do something dramatic to get them back together, even in the same room.