A/N. Well, hmmm... what can I say, I guess the keys just wouldn't be left alone. I still am not very sure where I'm going to take this, but it seems like the plot is just forming on its own accord, though I guess that the turn of events so far are not very original!!. So I'll just take it one step at the time. I know my writting can be a bit "long sentenced" at times... but I just don't seem to be able to break that habit, so please bear with me... or come up with suggestions as to how to break this habbit. Well I hope you will still enjoy the story as much as I am enjoying writing it, and I will be happy if you will let me now what you think.

The night air was warm and balmy; a light breeze carried a sharp sent of salt on it, telling the tale of the ocean being within reach, even if it couldn't be seen from where he stood. He inhaled sharply, letting the refreshing air fill up his lungs, almost tasting the salt in the warm night air. Straining his ears, listening in the night for the rhythmic sound of the waves. He then exhaled deeply and could feel how tension left his body. Home, he was home at last. No matter how long he had been gone, and how unwanted his general appearance might be in this place, Charleston was, and would forever be his home of homes. He held a love for this stubborn city that he himself did not even fully understand. Perhaps it was a love grown out of the deep roots he still held here, despite his best effort to severe them. He looked around him. In the faint night light he could just make out the contours of the beautiful houses around him. Houses that in the harsh light of day would show definite signs of the struggles of the last decade and more, but here sheltered by the darkness they seemed to be whole again. As if no hardship had ever tarnished their stony facades or the people living within the strong unyielding walls. He enjoyed this moment, where he could for one miraculous moment forget all that had taken place over the previous years, and pretend that he was just a young man arriving home after yet another adventure. Not that he had ever really been a young carefree man with a safe family home to return to… His father had seen to that at an early age. Well never mind that was history, and he didn't want anything to spoil this moment of oblivion.

With a sigh and a shudder he picked up his bags, he would have to break this trance of his and enter the house, he could just now spot a bit further down the road, shortly. With reluctant slow steps he proceeded. He didn't knock, hoping it would be to late for his family to be up and about as it was quite late – he had timed his arrival to be sure that it would be to late for a big arrival committee to wait for him. Arriving unannounced of course also helped. He couldn't face their questions at this exact moment. He just wanted to forget, sleep and forget. He didn't care much if he never did wake up again, though he knew that would be quite an unlikely turn of events.

The door opened soundlessly and revealed that the house was indeed asleep. A lonely candled flickered by the light breeze caused by the opening of the door. He smiled lightly, some traditions never faded, briefly remembering his late childhood years where he had snuck out at night, doing God knows what, and arriving home late only to find a small candle of guidance burning for him at his return. Even after he had been sent to the door, he knew that his mother had let I burn for him. The light cast long eerie shadows around the hallway, creating ill shaped shadow monsters that quickly faded away as the flame steadied and spread a more welcoming feeling. Not that he really noticed this small drama playing out in front of him. He was to tired, to numb, to scared by the world right now to notice this small display of magic and wonderment that lurks, mostly hidden and unnoticed in every corner of the world for those who opens their eyes to notice.

He hoped that sleep would come easily, but he doubted it. His entire body hurt as though he had run for miles, instead of just the small walk from the station, which shouldn't be enough to tire a man of his age and constitution. Mentally though he had been running for months perhaps even longer… Running from the images of a blue clad baby girl flying through the air, before finally landing in a twisted immobile heap, from the images of a woman falling endlessly down a never ending staircase, images of the self same woman laughing sardonically at him, her otherwise pretty face twisted into an obscure otherworldly mask taunting him enticing him to come closer and then disappear with a high pitched cackle of laughter whenever he reached for her. He was feeling a fatigue he had never known before, an all encompassing tiredness that threatened to swallow him, a tiredness of the soul. So at this moment in time all he wished for was to sleep.

But sleep wouldn't come as he lay starring unseeingly at the whitewashed ceiling above him. He slowly got out of bed again, sneaking down the beautifully decorated hall, but the beauty went unnoticed by his unseeing eyes, leading down to his father's old study, where he knew he could find some sort of relief.

Clutching the still unopened bottle in one hand and a heavy glass in another he re-entered his bedroom. A bedroom that always stood available for him, just waiting for his, however infrequent, returns. After his last visit he knew that his mother had hoped that next time he would bring not only his child, but also his wife. The old gossips of Charleston's society were probably busy gossiping about the fact that his wife of several years had never been properly introduced, even though she was of good family.

He settled into one of the high backed armchairs, his feet resting lazily on the designated footrest. To the outside observer he would look like an ordinary man just enjoying a silent night cap, but on his inside everything was a mess. His heart in shattered ruins and his mind a chaotic mess.

For once he felt like his wife's everlasting mantra of "I'll think about it tomorrow" actually had some justice. He couldn't help feeling a small upwards pull at the corner of his mouth by this thought – perhaps there was still hope for him.

He took a large sip, feeling the golden liquid pass down is throat, spreading warmth and life through his entire body. He gave a small sigh. Almost startled by the sudden sound in the almost eerily silent house.

One glass, two glasses. And still no rest came to him. Instead it became harder and harder to suppress the memories and images that kept trying to pop their ugly head out of the swirling maelstrom that was his mind.

She had said she loved him, tonight of all nights. When he had at last thrown his towel in the ring and decided that there was no more for him in their life together. Uttering those words that he had longed to hear for so long had meant nothing to him. Irony of destiny he thought with a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes.

His mind set free by the liberal amount of alcohol was wandering unhindered over the memories that he usually managed to suppress, memories of the green eyed vixen that had had such a great impact on his life. Before meeting her he had been a content adventurer, with no place to call his, no place to lay his hat, or his heart for that matter. But al that had changed a warm summer day, when the world was still a beautiful place that hadn't been scarred by war and the loss that always followed in the wake of this most visible display of the faults in the nature of the human race - its lust for dominion and destruction.

That day when the war had actually started, his own personal war had started as well. A war against himself and the feelings that had erupted out of nowhere, feelings that he had prior to that date dismissed as something only weak people experienced, as a means to survive in a world to harsh for them to handle otherwise. He had then seen love as a security blanket, an illusion – how safe he had been without the knowledge of what was also a definite part of love – loss and the fear of rejection. He had felt lust before, and had enjoyed women from the many places he had visited through his years of exploring the globe and challenging the way of life that his father had wanted to force down his throat. But never love…. Love., what a strange thing. How could one person feel so strongly for another person after just one glance or indeed at all. The person who invented the damned concept deserved to be hanged! How could something so irrational, unexplainable and illogical as love play such a great role in the history of man. It didn't make sense to him then, and he hadn't come much closer to grasp the concept of love now more than 12 years later. He just knew that this love had influenced his life in a way that he could never have foreseen.

If he back then had know how much hurt this love would bring with it, would he then have turned away, and never attended that blasted barbecue? Most likely not! First of all, he probably would not have believed that he would in fact fall in love, that he was capable of doing something so utterly out of character as falling in love after just one glance, one brief encounter; secondly, would her really wish to have lived his whole life without knowing what love felt like. For even if there had been mostly sorrow and heartache (at least recently), there had also been precious moment of infinite tenderness that he would not be without, no matter how much the rest hurt. And Bonnie, without this love he would never have experienced the love he felt toward his precious girl, though right at this moment he couldn't come to an agreement whether this was good or bad. That loss still hurt far, far too much.

He turned over the images of his first encounter with the young Scarlett O'Hara in his mind. First, a quick glance at her as she climbed up the grand staircase that had been a prominent feature of that grand house, she had somehow already then seemed more alive to him than most. And therefore caught his attention as she by that fact alone stood out in the sea of young beautiful girls clad in yards of silks and muslins. Later that day she had been the focal point of attention for most of the young men present. Like a colourful bird on display in a sea of browns and greys. And as most animals on display she hadn't been happy even though to the unskilled observer it would seem like she had everything in the world that she could wish for. But he, Rhett, had developed keener observational powers and had deducted that the reason for her ill disguised sadness was the only young man who weren't constantly giving her attention and paying her compliments. This had been confirmed in the final encounter of the day, where he had witnessed her showing all pretence of being a lady to the bone aside, and thrown herself at that very same gentleman. Mr Ashley Wilkes. Oh that had been the final attack at his heart, though he didn't realise it immediately. How could one resist a girl who showed such temperament and fire despite her polished exterior? He had been sure then that she held in her great passion that just waited to be unleashed! How he dreamed of being the one to do exactly that. Back then he hadn't recognised the feelings he felt as love, he only new that he had met his match in a way he hadn't ever before.

During the war he had wormed himself into her life, by tempting and tormenting her, yet allowing her to explore parts of herself that had before been suppressed by her mother's careful layers of varnish. And he hadn't been disappointed. When exactly he had acknowledged that he was actually in love with her, he couldn't quite pinpoint, it had been more of a gradual revelation. Her worming her way into his heart and every thought just like he had wormed himself into being a constant part of her life.

Once the realisation had dawned on him that he had fallen completely in love with her, he had started his running. He had been running from her for years, trying with every grain of willpower available to him forget her, before finally allowing himself to commit to her and ask – no trap her - into marrying him. Oh how sweet her lips had been on that evening. When he sought her out he had at first had no intention of asking her to marry him. But her scared frailty had moved him, and he had convinced her by dangling his immense wealth in front of her nose and showing her that there could be more to a man's kisses than a dry peck on the lips. He was sure she had never been kissed that way before. He had at that moment felt hope that she could actually grow to love him and not keep on being besotted with that stuffy righteous, to good for his own good Ashley Wilkes. She had responded in a way he had not expected, and thus he had been lead to reveal more of his true feelings for her with that kiss than he had initially intended, leaving with that kiss a little bit of his soul in her possession. Luckily or perhaps not so, she had ,daft as she could sometimes be, not realised this tremendous gift, and thus he had gone back to passionate, but somewhat disengaged kisses after they had married.

Other images fluttered through his mind, but the alcohol had after all had its effect and he weren't able to hold any of those glimpses from his previous life long enough to process them. Only one thought overshadowed the others - he had never in all their time succeeded in making her forget Ashley Wilkes, and for that he could not forgive her or himself, that had apparently only happened when he no longer cared.

With a shake of the head he brought himself back to present days and the miserable situation that was his life. How utterly comic that he Rhett Butler was finally a broken man. He who had been so strong, challenged the world since his young years, and mocked everything that other people held dear, was bent, broken, defeated… left to his own destruction.

He had left her because he saw no other way out of this whole sorry mess, he had no energy left in him to fight. No hopes to fight for. All that was beautiful in the world had been killed. She said she loved him, but how could she love him when she didn't know what love was. He rightfully didn't know if he loved her anymore. He hadn't lied when he had told her that there was nothing left for her but kindness and pity. But could there ever be more? His mind was blank when he had tried getting an answer to that question on his long lonely train ride from Atlanta to Charleston. Had he seen in himself just a small reflection of the love he used to harbour, then perhaps he would have stayed. Had he truly believed her capable of healings his hurts, he might have given his heart the benefit of the doubt. But he didn't and thus he had left.

He needed to find space and clean air, where he could breathe freely once again. Let his mind and body heal from the mental and physical abuse it had been subjected to for the last many months.

How he longed for a simple happy life…