Thank you for all your wonderful thoughts and reviews. I am constantly amazed at your brilliance. I rarely give out a lot of clues, but you all are several steps ahead of me more often than not. Sanjo – your ability to casually knock every plot-nail on the head is astonishing. I did indeed think both Rhett and Scarlett suffered from Post Traumatic Stress, and that it was important for her to recognize and understand that this contributed to him leaving her at the end of the novel. FirthsDarcy, thanks for the vote of confidence. I apologize for the rollercoaster, but you're quite right …I think he had to understand what his leaving meant to her, and she needed to understand why he did it. Progress!

One thing I probably don't do a good job at explaining is that they were happy for the last 18 years. Not fairytale-perfect-no-conflicts-no-doubts happy, but that kind of happy doesn't exist. Now some stuff has come up, and it needs to be dealt with. And full disclosure: Helen, I think they can and should get back together. Not because it'll be sunshine and roses ever after, because it won't, but because I have the distinct feeling they'd be much worse off apart. Rhett certainly would, and probably even Scarlett, because she needs the kind of love she has for him for growth.

I've always wanted to explore those lost little brothers, and how they fit into things, especially how Scarlett dealt with Bonnie's death, and how her mother's example affected her. This is my attempt.

There'll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through all the centuries,

And who can say but some young belle may walk and talk men wild

Who is my beauty's equal, though that my heart denies,

But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child,

But that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun,

And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray.

I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God's will be done:

I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

-W. B. Yeats

It is perhaps not altogether surprising for those most familiar with Scarlett O'Hara Butler that the first emotion to return was irritation.

She started walking down the road at nine o'clock in the morning. She walked with an unhurried pace, for all the world like a woman taking a leisurely stroll after breakfast. She past the swampland to the right by the Flint river - former Slattery land - that Tara had long since absorbed as its own. She walked up to the crest of the hill, and stared into the distance, where the road dipped down and then up again, past the former site of Twelve Oaks, and then snaked in winding curves towards Jonesboro.

There was nothing to see. She pushed against the red earth with the sole of her shoes. She counted the blue-jays singing on top of the pine trees. She twirled around several times, making her skirts fly prettily, but there was nothing else to do here. Despite the fact that the trees shielded her from the view of the house, she did not wish to appear like someone who was waiting for something.

She stared once more down the road, squinting her eyes at the eastern sun. There was still nothing of interest on the horizon - not even a cloud of dust. Somewhat reluctantly, she turned back, and marched down the road again. When she arrived at the clump of cedars that marked the beginning of the driveway to Tara, she halted. The stump she had sat on, almost a life-time ago, to wait for Gerald's return from the Wilkes, had long withered.

She wished that she had gotten around to having that bench installed, that Will had been talking about. It would have given her an excuse to linger.

She turned back towards the house, ducking beneath the shadows of the trees. She craned her head back several times while she was walking, but she was careful not to turn her entire body. Or to stop. There was no one about to see her, not even the bay horse and the dappled grey mare who stood by the fence, swatting at flies with their tails, and twitching their ears. But it seemed a matter of principle.

She had spent six week at Tara already. In many ways, it was as it had been as when she was a very young girl. The wisteria was once more bright against the white-washed brick, and the Bermuda grass on the lawn was as green as memory, studded with noisy geese and turkeys. Melly's hen-house still stood, reinforced against predators, filled with the descendents of the chicken she had tended so successfully after the war. The orchard was rich with red apples and pink peaches. The stables were clean and well-swept. The cotton and the corn stood high in the orderly fields, awaiting its harvest – a few weeks later this year, because an unusually wet Spring had delayed the planting. There was nothing here to irritate even the most fastidious of co-owners.

Indeed, the feeling of irritation had been with her even prior to her arrival. It had, in fact, manifested itself after only a few days at sea, when she realized she was out of the habit of sleeping alone.

She did not know whether to be more surprised by the revelation itself, or by the fact that it had managed to nudge its way through the thick layers of the numbness, to lodge itself in her consciousness.

When the nightmares began shortly afterwards, she was forced to wonder if Rhett's presence had, perhaps, heretofore kept them at bay. They were nightmares of falling – Bonnie from a pony. She down the stairs. And other nightmares, even worse than the former, filled with a nameless, shapeless horror, that was closing in on her, suffocating her. She would wake from them all, sweat-drenched and screaming. Severe enough that she delayed going to sleep. Severe enough that she contemplated returning on the next boat, back to Rhett, simply to make them disappear.

Somewhere during that interminable voyage, she realized she had come to depend on his presence. She mentally took out her compiled list of sins Rhett Butler had committed against her, and added this last item with a sort of grim satisfaction.

She was still having them almost nightly even after she and the boys arrived at Tara. She was hollow-eyed and pale, which her kin attributed to the ordeal she had just survived. They were very kind.

She enjoyed seeing Will again, and his equally taciturn son Seth, who helped with the running of the plantation. Suellen was as she had ever been – they would never be close, but they had managed to carve out a grudging sort of respect for the other over the years. Scarlett would have been the first to acknowledge that her lazy sister had mutated into an excellent housekeeper. Tara was well-run, and if, just as Old Miss had predicted, neither Suellen nor Will had managed to bestow the glamour upon it that Ellen had, they made up for it in quiet neatness and efficiency. Their daughters were grown and married, much to Scarlett's relief, for they all favored Suellen, both in looks and in character.

Belle, James and Jim had brought Perry, somewhat to Scarlett's satisfaction, for no other reason than that Belle's presence flustered Suellen inordinately. Belle had only stayed for one day, but of course the news got out anyways, and the neighborhood was set properly a-flutter, which would have been amusing under most other circumstances.

Scarlett was genuinely happy to see Belle again, and gently probed for news of Thad on Rose's behalf, but found his mother both vague and evasive on this subject. Scarlett was forced to remember that Belle, for reasons best known to herself, had never quite approved of Rose. Instead, Belle gave a vivid description of Mrs. Schafer, a handsome young widow, whom Thad was sure to marry before the year was out.

Perry, who had apparently run into the lady on several occasions during his stay, supplied additional tidbits of long yellow hair, and a noteworthy figure, if his generous, demonstrating hand movements over his chest were anything to go by - all of which made Scarlett rather uneasy.

Perry had been delighted to see her and his twin, but chafed somewhat at exchanging the excitement of a large cattle ranch for the relative boredom of a cotton plantation. But the boys soon found ways to amuse themselves, and would go fishing by the river, or play hide-and-seek between the corn stalks, as Scarlett had done with the darkie children and the neighboring boys when she much younger.

The neighbors had welcomed her back kindly, despite her odd ways of associating with even odder people, which they had long grown accustomed to. The new century was creeping ever closer, and the old was receding even in the memory of the countryside, leaving behind the old glamour and the old mores.

Beatrice Tarleton and her daughters had stopped by, as had Sally Fontaine and Letitia Cooper, the new mistress of the former Twelve Oaks plantation. The visits afforded Scarlett the pleasure of knowing she had kept better than any of the younger Tarletons, or even Sally. They had asked questions about Europe, and commiserated with her on the flood. They asked about Rhett, and her older children. Beatrice heartily approved of Rose's becoming a doctor. They had met when the Butlers had visited Tara last year, and gotten along well.

"That's a sharp one," she added, looking at that damsel's mother with contemplation. "Doesn't take much after you, I think." It would have been censure on the lips of anyone else at any other time, but there was esteem in her voice, that of one survivor for another. She had mellowed over the years, her fierce red hair was all white now, but she had a whole flock of horses again, and would talk endlessly about them, given the slightest encouragement.

In many ways, being here was as it had been when she was young, and carefree. The plantation did not need her assistance to run, and for once, she felt no impulse to usurp Suellen's position. She was able to spend time resting, catching naps during the day that were strangely enough less prone to nightmares than her attempts at nighttime rest. Sometimes she sat on the porch, and watched the children play, her mind in faraway places.

She became terrified when she saw the fires of Atlanta burning around her, the smells and the sounds vividly before her – and then found herself back in her porch-swing, looking over the fields at Tara. She became even more terrified when it happened again.

~~oo~~

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm going insane," she said to Will one humid afternoon by the pasture. They stood by the grey mare, whom Will was scratching absent-mindedly behind the ears. She had taken to trailing him in his afternoon walks about the plantation, his sharp eyes on the look-out for a fence that needed mending, or a ditch not properly drained. Somehow, she found his presence kept the horrors at bay.

Now the words tumbled out ….the nightmares, the visions.

He nodded. "I heard of such things happenin' to soldiers," he said, steadily. "Even I dream of the battles, sometimes. And the death. Worse when something bad happens, and reminds you."

"It's not just that," she said, feeling the desperate need to unburden herself to an understanding ear. "I haven't been able to …feel much of anything for months." She told him of Ella's miscarriage. Her withdrawal from Rhett. The flood, and her flight.

"The feeling'll probably come back again," Will had said gently, chewing on a blade of straw. "You pulled through tougher stuff 'n this, and come out standing."

"That's just it", she replied, mournfully. "I'm wondering if it was finally ….too much? If Ella's losing the baby was the last drop." And then she had softly voiced her greatest fear- "Remember what you said at Pa's funeral? About people whose mainspring is busted, and who are better off dead?"

He nodded, slowly.

"The way I feel right now ….or don't feel - I wonder if that's me."

He regarded her thoughtfully, for a long moment. She let her gaze drop.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?"

He almost grinned. "I never thought you'd be one to worry about such things."

"I didn't used to," she said, morosely. "It's only since I started feeling like this, that I began to wonder…. " She sighed, and added disjointedly, "Mother would be so disappointed in me."

He gave her an odd look. "Why do you say that?"

"She was always so…..strong. She never let anything…"

He gave her another odd look. "Perhaps she'd understand better'n anyone."

"Why's that?" she asked, confused.

He chewed on his blade of straw, thoughtfully. "'bout your Ma. There's something you don't know." He waited until the pale green eyes were trained upon him expectantly. "There was a boy she loved in Savannah, before she married. Her cousin. Named Philippe. Her father sent him away, and he was killed in a bar fight." He waited for the information to sink in before he added, "Mammy said she was dead inside, ever since then."

Philippe. Dilcey had said Ellen had called for a man named Philippe, just before she died. Mammy had been angry with Dilcey.

"When did Mammy tell you this?" She felt a stirring of disbelief, and then of indignation.

"Got it out of her just before she died. Or rather, she told me of her own accord. I figured she wanted me to know, just in case." He paused again, lifting his hand once more to scratch the horse. "Was a wise old soul, Mammy. Understood more'n most of us ever will."

"But Mother loved Pa, and us…"

"Much as she was able, yes." It was perhaps most damning to the fair Ellen that there was not even a hint of condemnation in his pale eyes.

"You see," he said, carefully tying the ends of his thoughts together for her, when he saw her struggle, "you couldn't never live up to your ideal of your Ma, because she weren't a full person anymore by the time you met her. It's easy to be a saint, if you ain't really alive."

Churches crumbled into dust, were rebuilt, and tottered.

"But…"

"Now you …" He shook his head, and regarded her with a life-time of affection and esteem. "You always seemed so open to life. Open to love." The corners of his eyes crinkled at the memory. "Ain't to say you always loved …..wisely, 'cause we both know you didn't. But you always loved. Even if you made mistakes, and got things wrong sometimes, you were always tryin'."

"Perhaps," she said, softly, turning her head, faintly warmed by his praise. Then, irritation took hold again. "Certainly I haven't always loved ….wisely. Or else I wouldn't have spent the last eighteen years with a man who…"

"Come now," Will chided, gently, his quiet voice even holding a trace of envy. "I weren't talking about Rhett, and you knew it. A blind man can see that he loves you. What you didn't know 'till now, perhaps, is if he'd run away again, if he ever admitted to you just how much."

It was true, she realized. It wasn't Rhett's love she had doubted. Just his courage.

And when he had finally been brave enough, she had left.

"And in the end, not even that matters all that much," Will added, contemplatively, his mind already moving forward. "Folks are gonna do what they're gonna do. Love, or not. Run, or not. What matters is that you love them."

"Pa…"

"Your Pa loved your Ma, least as he understood her. Weren't the real her, but it was enough for him. You love Rhett, and perhaps you know 'im better than your Pa did your Ma. At any rate, loving him took away that hungry look you had, and perhaps made you a better person. Only you can know that." He winked at her, and she smirked back at him, somewhat wryly. He turned his pink head towards the loud yells of the boys, who were playing Indian and Cowboys between the corn. "You did well with them boys," he added. "And them girls'll have a real woman to model themselves on, even if they don't always want to be like you, in every respect."

She stared at him. She had not expected him to approve so openly of her mothering. "But Rose…."

"That one is trickier," he agreed. "But weren't your fault. And she's better off, fer knowin' your struggles, and what it took to get you where you are, than if you'd been an idol in pretty clothes, that she could never live up to."

As always, his words shone with the comfort of truth.

~~oo~~

One balmy afternoon not long after their talk, she had gone into the enclosure underneath the gnarled cedars. She stood with a bent head, staring at the graves. Ellen O'Hara, beloved wife. She stared at the graves of the three little brothers that had died before they learned to walk. All three headstones bore the same inscription: Gerald O'Hara, Jr. She tried to remember something about the babies, especially the third little Gerald, who had been almost seven months at his death, but she could recall only disjointed images. She hadn't been a maternal little girl, but she remembered carrying him about sometimes, making him laugh. She remembered missing him when he was gone.

And for the first time it struck her as wildly, terribly odd that she possessed no mental image of her mother grieving. It had seemed natural at the time, and that, too, was wildly- terribly- odd, in retrospect. She had tried, and failed, to mimic that unnatural serenity after Bonnie's accident, after any calamity in her life, and she wondered, disjointedly, how that had hurt her. Will's words came rushing back to her, and she thought, Mother didn't change after she lost them….. not because she was strong, but because she was already dead.

She stared at the little stones, and expected her tears to fall. But they did not.

She didn't cry until she turned back to Ellen's grave. She feel to her knees on the red, moist earth. She felt the tears fall silently at first, and then become a torrent. She wept for nearly an hour -heaving, wailing, sobs, not the pretty feminine tears of her girlhood, when she hadn't understood sorrow. She didn't know if she wept for Ellen, or for herself. She didn't think, my mother could not judge me, because I never knew my mother. She didn't think that she was now much older than Ellen had been when she died – that she had six living children who knew her; sometimes, perhaps, to their detriment, as she had never known Ellen.

She only felt that she had stepped onto a different plane of life, one that her mother had never reached, and thus had no jurisdiction over. It was a looking-down sensation, utterly without judgment, but foreign to her who had always looked up.

When she rose, the first colors of evening had started to appear in the sky. Grey and pink and white alternated with the deeper blues to come. There was a wind in the pine trees, that swooped down, and ruffled the grass, and caused the cotton stalks to jingle.

~~oo~~

For the sixth time that day, she had cleared the driveway, and stared out at the winding road beyond. It was now late afternoon, but the September heat was still heavy in the air. She watched the lone figure in the distance approach, and grow ever larger. He was leading a limping horse by the reins. Suddenly, she couldn't hold herself back any longer. She started running. Her skirts were billowing behind her.

She didn't stop until she stood in front of him. "You're late," she said, in a slightly peevish voice.

He stared down at her, and smiled when he saw her eyes – the wide, devilish grin he had given her at the Twelve Oaks barbeque. "In your letter, you said two months." He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his shirt-pocket with a flourish. "It is now the 16th of September. Exactly two months to the day this letter was dated."

"But it's late!" she repeated, not very originally.

The black crescents went up. "Dare I hope you were wishing to see me sooner?"

"Oh, don't presume!" she huffed, turning away. He took hold of her arm, and turned her around to face him, gently but forcefully.

"My horse went lame just outside of Jonesboro. I've had to walk all the way here." There was still the hint of a smile on his lips.

She felt suddenly peeved again- peeved, irrationally, that he had come, and deprived her of her grievance. Peeved at his cheer. "I'm glad you find this all so amusing."

His expression became blank, and she saw the levity had been, once more, entirely counterfeit. "Amusing?" There was a subtle vibrato to his tone that was almost frightening. "The only thing that kept me from complete insanity was your letter. Such as it was. Telling me I could come after you in two months."

She swallowed, overpowered by the intensity of his gaze. She saw that he was dusty, and covered in sweat, and that he was swaying in the heat. "We shouldn't talk here, in the middle of the road. In this sun," she said, feebly. Behind them, Tara rose, the massive, front-facing windows hidden by the cedars.

His eyes seemed to take in his surroundings for the first time. The horse's paddock, the shadows of the avenue. "No," he agreed. He grabbed her arm again, firmly, and pulled her under the arch of the trees.

"Rhett!" she called out, in surprised protest. But she allowed herself to be pulled along.

Beneath the trees, all sounds were muffled. There was only a faint buzz of insects in the air, and even the birds seemed to feel the solemnity of the occasion, and hush.

She turned to look at him again. Even in the semi-darkness, out of the heat, she had to admit he did not look well. His face was lean, as if he hadn't been eating properly, and there were dark rings under his eyes. She doubted she looked much better herself.

Her treacherous body craved his presence. It had been almost two decades since they had spent this much time apart.

"I wasn't sure if you'd come, " she said, finally, to break the ominous, eerie silence.

She saw it flash in his eyes, that last thing he had left to give her, to surrender. The final remnant of his pride. When it was gone, his eyes were drained and dark.

Eventually, and she did not quite know how it happened, she took an infinitesimal step closer to him. She felt the gravel crunch under her feet, and betray her movement, her own surrender, that she'd been hoping to hide for another heartbeat. He didn't stir. She took another step. Now, she was so close that she was able to lean her dark head against his chest. He exhaled, as if he had been holding his breath.

"Thank God," he said, with a shuddering sigh. His chest heaved beneath her ear, and his arms went around her to clutch her tightly. She did not look up to see if he was weeping.

He pulled her ever closer. She closed her eyes. The abandoned horse neighed, and somewhere on the pasture, there was an answer.

There was a subtle hint of freshness in the summer air. Soon, it would be harvest time.