Sorry, for the long update time. I'll try to make this chapter longer and worth the wait. We'll start right away. I own nothing, except my books, posters, movie, collectibles and new screenplay book. The unedited version too!
Bonnie had seen many things happen to her strong yet proud mother in the same lifespan God had given her. She had seen Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler, or Momma to her, overjoyed, pleased, desperate, angry, disappointed and every emotion in between. Even if it was to be behind the closed doors, the invisible curtains her mother had drawn, or not to be seen, Bonnie had felt that she understood her mother better than most other people did. She thought only her dear father knew her beautiful mother as she did, if not better than she did.
No matter what had been almost proven otherwise she loved her mother in a way she loved no one else. Bonnie Blue loved her father because he had spent time with her and bought things for her, acted like she was the only person he cared about at times. She loved her mother as a soldier loves their commander.
She respected her and wanted to be like her. Bonnie had wanted to grow up and be beautiful; she had inherited her mother's dark, thick, raven hair and pale, Southern belle skin. She wanted to be what she saw her mother as; a proud woman who wouldn't let the world or any person break her at all.
Bonnie had wanted to be what her mother had appeared to be most of the time. However, sometimes Bonnie would view the side of her mother she and her mother both didn't want her to see. The weak side, the side that her father could bring out or cause at times. She knew that somewhere in their hearts they must love one another. She could see obvious similarities between her mother and father and she had always heard that people usually got along better if they were alike. How would two people be married if they didn't love one another?
She had grown up on the small stories her father and occasionally her mother would tell her before she would drift into a sleep in the dark of night, always lit by a candle by her bedside. Her mother wasn't as experienced with them as her father was so the plots were simpler and easier for the small girl to understand. The characters were usually shallower and, in her mind had more conflicts with themselves than with anyone else. She always felt that those moments, with her mother sitting on her bed and stroking her hand while her smooth voice broke the silence of the room that she was closer to her mother and that Scarlett was revealing things she would never say aloud to anyone else. She seemed to be voicing secrets and thoughts in a way the small girl could only half understand.
Her favorite story had been when Momma had told her of a beautiful princess that had lost her way so many times she didn't know which road would lead her the correct way. The story was more complex than the others were and it seemed to be the one closed to her mother's heart. It was the one where Bonnie could ask any questions and her mother could answer them.
The princess had been raised well but had thrown away the teachings without regret. She had met people who had helped and hurt her. She had made her way through the world with mostly her own courage and strength though. The princess was never named and the other people in the story were always titled by what the princess knew them as. However, the characters didn't need names, her mother's voice brought them to life, named or not.
Sometimes her father had almost the same plot as her mother, except in his the pirate loved the princess and she loved him back, even if she wouldn't admit it or even quite know what the emotion she felt was love. She noticed that neither story was told when both of her parents were in the same room though. They were reserved for when she was alone with one of her beloved parents. When both were in the room she settled for toned-down versions of her father's blockading stories and she seemed to have a silent agreement with both of them that forbid her to ask for that story on that night.
"Momma!" a small voice from the room called.
Scarlett had been walking through the hallway when she heard her little daughter speak. "What is it, darling?" she asked in her usual voice that she used around Bonnie, calm and soothing.
"I want a bedtime story, but Daddy's not here!" she cried out, knowing her mother would come into the room.
True enough, Rhett wasn't home. 'He's probably out drinking somewhere and doing God knows what,' Scarlett thought. Her mother walked into the room Bonnie occupied when she wasn't in the cot at her father's side. Scarlett left the doors open only a crack and sat on the edge of her blue-eyed daughter's bed. "And you think I can tell you one?" she answered Bonnie somewhat sarcastically.
If Bonnie told her the truth, she would have to say that she didn't care if the plot didn't make any sense. She wanted and needed the proof that her mother did love her even if others would try to tell her differently. "Ella wants a story too," Bonnie answered, pointing in the small light that was beside her bed only for her fear of the dark to the bed on the other side of the room.
"Is this true, Ella?"
Guilty, the ginger haired girl rose from her position and sat up. "Yes, Momma," she answered, hugging her knees to her chest.
Scarlett smiled in her direction and motioned her over. Ella Lorena stood and came to her mother, sitting beside her on the bed. "What do you want to hear about, Ella Kennedy?" Ella looked at her mother and spent a moment in thought. Bonnie sat up and fidgeted in her bed. "What is it, Bonnie baby?" Scarlett asked with a chuckle.
"What about the princess? Last time you told me she met the pirate and prince and everything but what happens?" The little girls' eyes sparkled. "The prince sounds…" She didn't know how to word the thought.
"I like the pirate," the usually quiet Ella said suddenly. Bonnie nodded her head excitedly and smiled.
"So do I!" she said. It was true that the two girls were as different as a swan and a wren but they were close friends and could interact and play well together. "The princess is crazy," Bonnie added. "She should know that the pirate is her one true love!"
Scarlett laughed lightly and the two girls thought she was laughing because it was obvious that the princess would never live with the prince but would want to be with the pirate. The two exchanged glances and looked expectantly at their mother. She paused for a moment to look like she was thinking and began the story again.
"Well, the princess needed to get back to her kingdom, because the evil forces were trying to overtake the town she had lived in for so long. The prince was away at war and who was there to turn to other than the scandalous pirate she thought that she loved to hate?"
Some of her favorite moments with her mother had been in those late night moments. She had to do this for her mother- and father, she added to herself. Since she had left her parents, she had seen her father change into a person she barely knew and saw her parents grow apart. Bonnie Blue Butler was getting her parents back together. She didn't have much to lose did she? Once one is past the point of living they like to spend their time making the livings' lives better.
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She lay back on the pillows of the large bed and took a deep breath. The tear flow had stopped but she let the tear stains remain on her pale face. Scarlett's brilliant emerald eyes showed a new emotion. Hurt, true hurt. Even when Ashley had, in her mind, broken her heart she had never felt this odd feeling of hopelessness. This feeling that nothing could ever make her happy again.
But honestly, what was there left to make her happy? Bonnie was gone, she'd lost their baby and the chance to be happy when she took her horrible fall down the staircase. Melly had soon followed Bonnie to the grave and Rhett Butler had walked out of her life. She was used to Rhett helping her through the rough spots of her life, even if she acted as if she hadn't needed him or that he was a burden and in the way.
Of course, their destroyed marriage wasn't only her fault. He had left because she never told or showed him that she loved him, because she didn't call for him when she fell down the stairs. But how was she to know she was supposed to? In any moment she thought he would admit that he loved her he would change the conversation. Scarlett wasn't completely at fault because he had hid it from her as well. He told her that she could have called for him but with the conduct she had witnessed before her fall she could almost but sure that he didn't love or even want her.
And he'd been the hypocrite he was always calling her. He had been angry when India told everyone she was cheating on him with Ashley but he had, in fact, been the one to go to someone else. He'd gone to the dreadful Watling woman.
She shook her head and tried to get the horrible thought from her mind. He'd gone from her to a whore, to a woman that-
Scarlett couldn't think about it. At least not now.
But it was her fault too. Why had she followed the illusion of Ashley? Why had she turned him away from her bed? When she'd done it, she had soon regretted it. She had loved to lie down and listen to him whisper stories in her ear or run his fingers through her dark hair.
Rhett had always been there to hug her to him and comfort her when the nightmares of mist and unknown chases had made her wake with a cold sweat and a fear stronger than anything she had ever had or been through. And this was the woman who had shot a man and stolen his wallet because she and her family were starving and needed money. He would shake her awake and calm her from her screams and tears. As she grew drowsy, she would hear the soft, comforting sound of his voice in her ear, telling her of his blockading days and the adventures he and others had had in their lifetimes.
On the other hand, sometimes they would stay up together, Scarlett in his arms, and she would talk about her beloved mills and the progress Johnny's was making. Scarlett and Rhett would both avoid conversations concerning Ashley Wilkes. They would only discuss things Melanie had said or social events Melanie had wanted Scarlett to come to. After Scarlett grew bored of the calm talk, he would tell her more of his endless story pile in his head.
Sometimes she would be tempted to tell him that she loved when they spoke like this. They interacted well and learned things about one another that would never come up in daily conversation. She had learned things about him she liked to think he had shared with no one else and she told him old stories from back at Tara, before she had starvation, war, and children to worry about. It would be on the tip of her tongue and the words would form at her lips but then she would remember that he would use it against her and she would close her mouth, deciding to not saying anything. The words would be like the red bubbles she had seen on so many soldiers lips. They would be the signal of her death, or what would feel like it when Rhett's hard comments pierced her.
He would laugh and sardonically say about how he didn't love her, only wanted her and had no other way to get her, or at least that's what she thought. Little did she really know that the only thing holding him back from telling her he loved her was that he though she would do what she though he would, laugh.
It was true that their marriage had stood on mistrusts and secrets. Looking back, Scarlett wanted desperately to be able to change that but she knew she couldn't. The past had happened and she couldn't change a thing about the darkness of it all.
And there was no denying one thing. Most of their marriage had been built on false hope and quite a few lies.
Scarlett hugged the robe closer to her. She was tempted to rise from the bed and go to the decanter, to one of the only things that had helped her through hard times, besides Rhett. Brandy. But she held back. Things wouldn't get better by drinking the memories away. Maybe those memories would be all she had left. She wouldn't drink them away.
And now that she though about it, it was true. Who had been there for her whenever she had needed him? Ashley wasn't, he was too busy having her take care of him. Rhett had been there, to laugh away her tears and fears of going to hell for marrying Frank and to hold her and calm her when the mist came into her dreams and woke her in her screams and sweats. He was there to hold her and tell her not to take her life into her own hands and to comfort her when everything seemed hopeless. He had taken her out of Atlanta when Sherman had gotten to it and she had gotten Prissy to get him.
He'd been there. Rhett had been there for her and she had never let him know how much it meant to her. She had never told him how grateful she was that he had been there to "rescue a maiden in distress" as he had joked.
Out of the corner of her mind, she remembered something:
"I'll bet you a box of bonbons against… against a kiss."
When he had told her, the Yankees would be in Atlanta, by the end of the month. Rhett had been right, and the payment for the bet had never been rewarded, or at least it had never been labeled as the reward.
She held her thin, pale fingers to her lips. She still had to pay him for the Yankees coming. Scarlett smiled slightly at the irony of her situation. How was it that she always loved the man she couldn't have? She let out a light bit of laughter. Only Scarlett O'Hara, Butler she added to herself, could find something humorous about the current situation.
Scarlett sat up, pulling the robe tighter around her still. She would make it through this. She swung her feet off the edge of the large bed and stood in front of the mirror. Her one hand lifted to rub away the tear streaks that ran across her cheeks. Scarlett pushed her arms into the armholes and pulled the sleeves up so they wouldn't hang past her small hands as much. Her fingers went to the hairline and pushed back the loose curls.
Scarlett sighed and started to remove the pins by herself. Her hair fell on her shoulders in small pieces, surrounding her face as she looked in the mirror. After the last pin was removed from her hair, Scarlett ran the silver backed brush through her dark hair, working through the small catches. Her eyes never left her reflection in the clear surface above the vanity. While her right hand worked the brush, her left hand opened one drawer, removing a picture in a golden frame from it. She laid the hairbrush down for a moment and opened the picture.
Blonde hair and drowsy gray eyes looked back at her from inside the oval that the golden color exposed. Her fingers ran over the picture before they franticly tore at the picture until it was away from the frame. Scarlett held it in her hand for a moment.
"You started this," she muttered to the picture. "And, by God, you'll finish it." She held the picture for a moment before quickly tearing it in half and in half again, crumpling the pieces in her hand. She put them on the wood. What used to be a portrait of Ashley Wilkes in uniform was now a pile of paper scraps on Scarlett Butler's vanity table.
A smile of relief came to her pretty features as she brushed the fragments aside and looked back from the spot they used to occupy to the mirror. She was going to get Rhett back. He had told her he loved her. There had to be something she could do. Scarlett had always gotten the man she wanted at one point. She would get Rhett back, she was sure of it.
From downstairs, she heard the small knocking of someone on her large front door. Her hand hurriedly reached for the rouge container on her table and in her haste, she didn't notice her arm knock the silver brush to the floor, slightly behind her. Scarlett's fingers moved quickly as she spread the red color over her cheeks. "I'll listen to you, Melly," she mumbled as she sat the box down. She wasn't going to look like she was falling to pieces. Whoever was at the door would notice that and guess something was wrong with the fast Scarlett O'Hara's marriage with the roguish Captain Rhett Butler. Scarlett wouldn't let the old cats get the gossip faster than they already did. "Probably old Mrs. Merriwether or Mrs. Meade. They'll want to know what I'm doing about the funeral. And India will want to know why I ran out so fast and why Rhett left before me. I can't let them know he isn't here." She stood before realizing what she was wearing, Rhett's dress robe.
"Damn," she muttered, pushing the chair aside and picking her dress up from the floor. Yes, she'd ripped it, she couldn't go down in that. Scarlett sighed and tossed the black cloth aside. She probably had something else suitable in her closet. She made her way to the door of Rhett's room and turned the brass knob. One last glance was given to his bed as she opened the door and ran swiftly to her room, across the expanse of stairs, and not glancing down at the bottom or the door.
The knob was turned and the door shut behind her as she went to the expansive closet, swinging open the door and walking in. Her hands shuffled through dress after dress. Mourning, mourning, she kept repeating in her head. Something black. She was technically still mourning for the loss of her beautiful daughter Bonnie so that shouldn't have been so hard to find in a closet like hers. She had more slippers than the whole rest of Atlanta probably did put together. Her bare feet slid into a pair of black slippers as she grabbed a black dress from the hanger.
She hung it over her arm, grabbing her hoops as she did so. Her corset was still mostly on, not as tight as she would have liked but she would still fit in the dress. White hands tied the hoops around her hips and she pulled the dress over them, smoothing it and looking in the mirror to make sure she looked presentable. In her rush, she didn't hear the opening and closing of the door downstairs minutes before. She pinned a broach to the neckline and gave a halfhearted smile to the mirror, one someone would give as a slight comfort to another in a hard time. That would be the best she could comfort anyone who would come to the door about Melly. One smile would be about all she could handle. If they would break down, sobbing and talking about Melanie she didn't know how or if she would be able to stand it. Scarlett squared her shoulders and set a determined look on her face. Time to go and play her part.
She turned from the mirror, her black hoops following her as she raced out of the room and down the stairs without looked up. They passed under her quickly, her mind not truly registering each step, but her feet going down them.
Before she knew it she had reached the bottom of the stairs and raised her head, but not soon enough she soon discovered. A second before her head was raised, her dark curls hanging down on her shoulders, she ran into one of the only people she would have liked to see at the moment.
"Scarlett?" the person called as she stumbled backwards, bringing her hand to her forehead. "Are you all right?" They stepped toward her slowly.
Scarlett took a long, slowed blink, trying to register the sight before her eyes. She hesitated before speaking, not sure of what her emerald eyes were telling her brain. "Rhett?" she finally choked out.
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He stepped into the house, looking around and seeing the house as what he had always seen it as, a prison. But this prison was different from the one Scarlett had visited him in for the tax money years ago. This one held more than him and his life, it held his heart, or rather, the jail keeper he called his wife did. Even if he had told Scarlett that, his love was spent like his dollars in the bank he was wondering if he could in fact start over from not having a cent to building a fortune like he had when his father turned him out on the street. He'd done it once with real money, by gambling. Maybe he would gamble with the few cents he had left. He might walked always with nothing but he might take it all, wasn't that the thrill of gambling? The pure chance of all or nothing?
Rhett turned and shut the door as quietly as possible behind him. Where was that beautiful little jail keeper anyway? He could tell the dining room was empty, so she wasn't in their, getting her nightcap before bed. He couldn't see any life on the first floor, now that he looked around. Was she upstairs then?
He looked down at his feet. Normally this wouldn't seem so odd; normally he would feel so much more confident. However, how could he have left with that speech about going back to Charleston and leaving her here, in Atlanta, and yet come back right away and go up to her bedroom, planning to whisk her away into his arms and never let go? He knew it would not be the best way to handle the situation. How would Scarlett respect his wishes and decisions at all if he lied to her and led her on a chase he knew she wouldn't win? He would be doing almost the same thing he had left her for, leading him on a confusing chase after her.
Rhett took a few steps away from the door without going into another room or nearing the stairs. From his position, he could see the change of color in the carpet from the rich scarlet to the dark color of his Scarlett's blood. The blood she had shed losing his baby and it was his fault. He has been the one to sarcastically ask her who the father was when he knew it was his, from the night after Ashley's party. In addition, he had even jokingly added about having a miscarriage, which she did only moments later.
Therefore, in reality it was his fault. His fault she fell, his fault Scarlett almost died, his fault she had the baby to deal with in the first place, his fault he went away, and his fault that he took Bonnie with him when he had run away from her. He had been a coward, the very thing he despised, and Scarlett had been the one to pay for it.
Rhett leaned back against the door, shaking his dark head. It was true. Many of his actions had made others suffer. Scarlett had lost their baby, Rosemary and his mother could not honestly accept his money because he was kicked out, and Bonnie had cried for her mother because he couldn't face one of his daughter's heroes, her mother. He should have known that someone so like Scarlett would miss her so much. He should have known- but he had missed her himself, as much as he didn't want to admit it to himself.
It was true; Rhett had missed Scarlett when he had left for London. Of course, he never admitted that to her, or even to himself. Rhett had thought if he admitted that fact to her, that she would hold it over his head until his dying day. Moreover, in reality, she could have. Scarlett had given him no reason to believe she loved him except on those few occasions when he had kissed her before their marriage. When she had slid, her arms around his neck on the day of his proposal he had a small fire of hope ignite inside of him. Perhaps there was a chance she could grow to love him! Once she realized how little Ashley Wilkes mattered and how similar they were, how they fit together so well!
Rhett shook his head again. What could he have done differently? He could have forgotten his damn pride for only a little while to admit to her that he did feel more than lust for her, that he felt that overpowering, strengthening and weakening emotion, the powerful emotion of love.
If someone had ever said that love was the only thing stronger than anyone or anything else he was right. Love had beaten the strong-willed Scarlett O'Hara and the strong Rhett Butler. Love had made Ashley miserable, before and after his wife died. False love made Ashley, Scarlett, and even Rhett suffer. They all had been thrown into a love triangle, and a love triangle was not one of the better places to be for anyone.
Rhett had learned that the hard way. He wasn't even sure why he had put himself in that position in the first place. Why would any sane person put themselves in a position for misery and suffering?
Rhett let out a sigh. Standing here, thinking of all the things he could have done wouldn't help him. He needed to talk to Scarlett. Honestly, talk to her, without having a fight develop within twenty minutes of the conversation beginning. Now that he thought about it, they probably hadn't had that for a long time, a fight free conversation. He saw a form run across the top of the stairs. Had he really seen it? It had to be her. It had to be the person he wanted to see, yet did not want to see at the same time.
Scarlett hadn't seemed to notice someone- namely him, standing in front of her door at her house. She had probably heard something or was simply moving to another room. However, why would she be on the other side of the house? The only thing on that side would be… his room. Was she in his bedroom, and if so for what purpose? It would be obvious to her that no one would be in there, and he could have swore she had been wearing a different color than the black she had left Melanie's in and what he had last seen her in, her black mourning gown, for Bonnie and now for Melanie.
He stood there, with his back to the door for a few minutes. What was she doing, just running from his room to hers? He took a few steps forward; he would talk to her, try to figure something out. After only a few steps toward the stairs, Rhett saw his dear jail keeper descending the stairs. Her black locks curtained around her pale, white face, her emerald eyes turned down. A newer black gown covered her body, her hair still messy. She must have just taken it down he decided. As soon as he saw her, he couldn't move though. It was as if his feet were frozen in a tub of molasses. Rhett couldn't move them if he had wanted to. Her face was turned down and she obviously thought someone had come to pay a call, thought they had knocked on the door and she was going to answer it. Before she lifted her head though her felt her small arm collide with his body, her loose hair jerk about her face, and she stepped back a few paces.
She looked up, unable to recognize him for a moment, it seemed. Finally, her mouth opened slightly before she closed it again. The black of her dress shuddered for a moment as she took a sharp breath and let it out suddenly.
"Scarlett," he began, reaching one hand out for her to take, "are you all right?"
Scarlett's red lips barely moved as the confused expression came to her face and she uttered a single word. The look on her face could tell anyone that this was the last person she expected to be standing in front of her door. "R-Rhett?" Scarlett's eyes held on his face for a moment and her brow puckered in confusion. "Is- is that you?"
He didn't know how to respond to her question was more complicated and had a deeper meaning than the surface question appeared. "What are you doing here?" her small voice asked again. How could his Scarlett's voice sound so weak, she was strong? How could her voice be the opposite of that? Nevertheless, that did raise a question. Why was he here?
To get Scarlett back was the easy answer, but why did he have to get her back in the first place? The answer to that was easy; he had left her here after she came home from Melanie's deathbed.
"We need to talk, Scarlett," Rhett answered finally in a careful and smooth voice. "We have a lot to talk about," he added.
Scarlett nodded her head in a few short, quick motions up and down. She still seemed to be in a trance after seeing him and she took his offered hand. Everything seemed to be moving in a slow and delayed action. "Yes," she finally spoke, gesturing toward the dining room. "Shall we?"