Residency is over! And I have a new job that starts Wednesday. So two days off, and time to write! Yay! Thank you, lovely reviewers, as well as and those that pm'ed to discuss the last chapter. Here, we have the ball from Rose's perspective. I hope you enjoy.

Edit to add A/N: I realized this chapter does require a key. One of those things that are entirely clear in my head, but much less clear on paper. ;-) The theme (I usually have one) is the many things that separate lovers who want nothing more than to be close. It can be looks (Rose is beautiful, so she can become a canvas for projection, instead of a real person). Society (the meddlers, both for good and for ill, at the Ball). "Work" - as symbolized by Thad's Piano playing. Gender roles (becoming what you are expected to become, instead of what you really are, as Rose realizes during the dance). And Gender itself - especially then, but even now, the world of men and and the world of woman aren't identical. The end, harsh as it was in some ways, was actually optimistic. Rose realizes she can only bridge all of those divisions by talking to him (see how this works, Rhett?), and they navigate a compromise, where he gets the physical closeness he needs, without damaging her.

Ella cries because she catches the strong emotion between them, and it permits her to let out her own grief, which she's desperately tried to hold back, especially after hearing about all her former friends and their children.

Does that make sense?

Charlotte and Ella, splendid in yellow and amber, descended the large staircase first. Thad, dressed in the black tailcoat, light waistcoat and white, high-collard shirt that made up the proper gentleman's evening attire, was already waiting for them below. The two girls were laughing, and there was a carefree, festive mood in the air.

Rose followed shortly afterwards, and as he turned to watch her descent, Thad was as if transported from his elegant townhouse into a fairy-tale for children. The light of the chandeliers picked up the blue in her dress, and flung it into her eyes. Her skin was white, her hair as black as ebony, and her lips as red as blood. The forge of grief and joy she had passed through over the last few years had hammered her form into grace. Walking down the stairs, she was as Snow White in her coffin, the poison apple piece in her throat, her moment of timeless beauty suspended for eternity behind translucent crystal.

Thad's gaze held her briefly, and then fell to the floor. Not being blind, he had always known Rose was beautiful. But it had been an attribute no weightier to him than the color of her eyes, or the texture of her hair. He had never lost her in it. He had never seen her like this, at once more, and much less than herself, as an archetype and a metaphor: Queen, Goddess, Mother. He felt serf-and orphan-blood clamor within him, and with its surging red tide came resentment.

He held out his hand, mechanically, and for the first time in years, his heart did not sing at her touch.

~~oo~~

The carriage ride was lively, mainly due to the excited, anticipatory chatter of Charlotte and Ella.

Rose held on tightly to his arm as they walked into the ballroom, and in the look she gave him - irony, detachment, and adoration - he found his Rose again. In his relief, he did not hear the audible gasp that went around the room at her loveliness.

He led them over to the night's hostess, Mrs. Valerie Harper.

Rose stood calmly before her, and allowed herself to be studied. The older woman's rich auburn hair was only occasionally streaked with grey, and her hazel eyes seemed almost of the same color in the candlelight. Her movements were crisp, and her smile bright, and genuine.

Thad introduced Ella, who was married, and then Charlotte, the senior in age. Only then did he turn to Rose. "Mrs. Valerie Harper – may I introduce my fiancée, Miss Rose Butler."

There was a spark of surprise in the woman's eyes, but it did not diminish the warmth in her smile. "So delighted you could come! I only regret the dear Mr. Rhett Butlers were not able to make it as well. We would have loved to see them again. They have been much missed, since they've moved to the East." She smiled benignly once more, and released them to the crowd.

Rose looked around. By Charlestonian standards, this was a medium-sized ball, and neither its size nor its standard of elegance were daunting to the cousins.

A group of young matrons almost immediately descended on Ella, and led her away with them. They had been her particular friends during her days as a young débutante in Houston. Rose, who had been worried her sister would be bored, or shy, allowed her vigil to relax. Charlotte left briefly to discover the delicacies arranged on the buffet. Most of those present seemed to know Thad, and almost all of them seemed to desire an introduction to his ravishing young fiancée. Rose sensed the reserve underneath their welcoming demeanor, and did not blame them. Some, she guessed, resented her for removing one of the most eligible bachelors from the matrimonial market, while others might question her family's standing for allowing her to wed one such as Thad.

The latter sentiments were easily discernible in the eyes of three thin-lipped sisters, of indiscernible middle age, and equally washed-out hair. They had a young woman with them, whom they introduced as their niece, Elaine.

"Mr. Watling," they nodded coolly in response to the greeting. It was obvious to Rose that Thad liked them as little as they liked him.

"So this is your fiancée," one of the women said, with a disagreeable smile. She focused her attention on Rose. "Who are your parents, my dear? Do they …..approve?"

Rose started slightly at the rudeness. "My parents are very happy," she replied, her delicate swallow-shaped brows arched.

"I can see why they would be," the young girl inserted, and in her gaze there was heartbreak. Conversation did not flourish, and Rose was not sad when they excused themselves shortly afterwards.

Another woman, whose thick auburn tresses and hazel eyes proclaimed her a close relation to their host, came rushing up to them in their wake.

"Thad!" she cried, with all the accents of genuine fondness. "How callus of you to keep us in the dark, and how lovely to bring us your fiancée." Her voice was as lilting as music, and the hands that clasped Rose's were warm, and firm. Rose found herself smiling back, feeling, perhaps, as her father must have felt, when he first encountered Melanie Wilkes' gentle eyes at the Bazaar in Atlanta.

"Dearest girl! What a delight to finally meet you. We were quite friendly with your parents whenever they were in town, but you were of course not out yet. You are your mother all over again, my dear! And your dress is simply…. divine!" And then, as if an afterthought, she added, "May I present you my daughter, Veronica." The full-figured, fox-haired young girl beside her, whose tresses were more red than brown, cast hostile glances at Rose, and barely nodded to her before concentrating all her attention on Thad.

"You and I are to dance the reel together," she announced, batting her long eyelashes in what she believed was a captivating manner. She held up an empty flute. "Oh! See! I have run out of champagne!"

Thad good-naturedly took the hint, and excused himself. Veronica shot Rose a look of triumph, and followed him.

Rose made a half-hearted attempt to despise her, but saw only the same child-like, captivating narcissism that had made her mother such a successful young Belle.

Mrs. Harper laughed a warm, tinkling laugh. "You will marry Thad," she said, irrepressible vivacity glittering on her features like a million dewdrops. Rose was surprised, especially in view of her daughter's conduct.

Mrs. Harper laughed. "You are wondering why I should be delighted, considering Veronica's ….interest in Thad, and you're asking yourself if I am, perhaps, one of those stuffy people who hold his illegitimacy against him." She smiled even wider at the brief expression of shock on Rose's face. "No, no. Believe me, I am neither dull, nor stuffy. Had they been right for each other, nothing would have pleased me more than a match between them, but they were not. Now, having met you, I can see why that is so."

"What makes you say that?" Rose asked. She appeared rather cold and disinterested – it was a trick of her perfectly regular features. Mrs. Harper did not take offense.

"Thad does not self-regulate well," the older woman said, gently. "He shall need you to help him."

"I don't understand."

"Don't you?" Mrs Harper asked, with an air that the uninitiated might have taken for confusion. "But you have seen it, I'm sure. There are men who can delight in a woman like a flower, and be perfectly content that she will never know his mind, as long as she loves him, and him only. For someone like Thad – that would not be enough, would it?" She let out something like a small laugh. "What an entirely odd conversation to have with someone I've just met! But I feel like I've known you since the beginning of time, my dear, and that you will grasp whatever it is that I tell you. And that is what I mean, don't you see? You can …understand him, and when the top spins out of control, you will whip it right back into the circle." She ran her hand through the thick hair. "Oh dear! Now I am really talking nonsense! Here are Thad, and Hugh. You must forgive me for speaking out of turn!" She turned once again, and gave Rose a last smile. "You see, Thad and I play music together!"

Rose heard it for what it was, a declaration of kinship. It disconcerted her more than the daughter's conspicuous flirting.

Thad introduced her to his companion. "My friend, Hugh Rittmeister." From the quick smile he bestowed on the other man, Rose deduced he was a close friend. "I apologize for running off again, but I must talk business to Mr. Glennan over there. I'll be right back. Hugh, I trust you to look after Rose for me." He turned, leaving the two to study each other.

She beheld a pair of pale blue eyes under bushy brows. Thad's friend was well built, though purposefully and expensively underdressed, after the manner of those who wish to affront their noble origins, without simultaneously renouncing their impact. She had seen some of those same traits in her father, and never admired them much.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet Thad's Rose," Hugh said, conversationally. "He has told me much about you." The heavy Mountain accent made him difficult to understand, and the pale eyes that raked over her were devoid of warmth, and full of unspoken judgments. Prosecutor's eyes, Wade had called them, whenever he saw such an expression in a man, or a woman.

It was a relief, at least, that Mr. Rittmeister did not seem at all taken with her beauty.

"The pleasure is mine," she murmured politely, though it was not.

"I must admit, seeing you here tonight is a bit of a surprise. I thought Thad would never get around to introducing us." The tone of his voice intended to let her know it had not been something he'd lost much sleep over.

Rose noted the peculiar vowel sound in "thought", formed as she had heard it formed for over two years on the Continent. "You were educated in England," Rose said, perhaps hoping to throw him off balance. "I can hear it in your voice. Why do you bother with the dialect?"

He laughed, and his voice changed. "Caught out, I'm afraid. Thad will have to beware, with a wife with such penetration."

She caught the implication, and flushed. He seemed conscious of the fact that he had badly blundered. "My lady…..I didn't mean….."

"I know exactly what you meant," she said, coolly. She was Rose Butler – related to the Butlers of Charleston, and the Robillards of Savannah. It was not a mask she used often, but it would serve her here, amongst these coarse strangers, who could not even feign common politeness when courtesy required it of them.

Strangely enough, he seemed amused. "Not cowed easily, are you? Good!"

She smiled the ironic smile of her youth, the one that covered her pain. "Not by pretension, no. Not your kind, or theirs." Her glance touched the three thin-lipped aunts of Miss Elaine Patterson, standing by the dance floor. "Although theirs is perhaps more candid, and thus, more easily forgiven." She lifted her eyebrows at him, before she turned, and walked away.

Had she turned, she might have seen him stare after her.

~~oo~~

Rose stood with the others in the circle around the black Grand Piano, watching Thad play.

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106, arguably one of the most difficult pieces of sheet music ever written for the instrument, pearled brightly through the night air. Thad's fingers dashed through the brief second movements like a school of dolphins skimming through the water. As thoroughly as Rose had disappeared into her beauty, Thad now disappeared into Beethoven, and afterwards, submerged into Schubert, and Brahms. He no longer hers - he belonged to Eugenie Harper, and the strange little Frenchman, and to the white-haired Mrs. Boesendorfer. And to all the world.

The little redhead writhing about the piano did not see it, even as she lifted her voice to join him in the Liebesliederwalzer. Nor did Elaine Patterson, whose blue eyes were feasting hopelessly on his face.

When he rose, and the strains of the Waltz filled the room, he walked towards Rose. There was a quizzical expression in his eyes. "Is everything all right?" She put her head to one side, trying to ascertain if all of him had returned from the structure of the music.

"I lost you," she murmured, softly. But she allowed him to take her hand, and lead her to the floor.

He availed himself of the opportunity to pull her close that the dance afforded him. "You could never lose me," he murmured, softly.

Her eyes gave him the lie. His hand tightened around hers in response, and she allowed his sense of rhythm to flood her again, as it had years ago in a ballroom in Charleston. Here was another way she could lose him, she thought, by losing the sharp edges of herself, by becoming, simply, female to his male.

She tried not to think.

~~oo~~

On the ride back home, Charlotte was every bit as animated as earlier in the evening, but this time it was not from anticipation. Rose undulated between shock and surprise when she heard Thad's ill-mannered friend had not only made Charlotte an offer of matrimony, but had apparently done so with Thad's expressed approval, and encouragement.

Thad listened patiently to the fullness of Charlotte's displeasure, which expanded in scope as the carriage rolled down the quiet, dark streets of Houston. When she restarted her arguments from the beginning, he held up his hand.

"You will perhaps think better of him when you get to know him more closely. I cannot say I approve of his manners tonight, but he is not usually this disagreeable. I have invited him to spend time with us, and if you still dislike him then, I have nothing more to say."

The finality in his tone silenced the girls. Rose could see that he was ill at ease, whether by Charlotte's indignation, or his friend's boorish behavior, it was difficult to say. Or perhaps, she thought, with the cynicism born of long years of practice, he was wondering how he would take in society, now that the carrot of bestowing his millions upon one of their daughters had been removed from his arsenal.

It was Ella who, innocently enough, gave voice to the thought, when Thad asked her how she had enjoyed the evening. "Very much! It was lovely to see all my friends again, and hear about their families, and…and….the children!" She smiled waveringly, and bravely continued. "But they did not seem altogether happy when I told them about your engagement, cousin Thad. It was so strange, but some of them looked almost …..angry!" She shook her reddish curls in bewilderment.

It was only then that he caught the strange, watchful expression in Rose's eyes, and his lips curled into something akin to disgust.

They finished the rest of the ride in silence.

~~oo~~

The others had gone to bed. Rose, too, had gone to bed at the same time as Ella, only to slip out ten minutes later, and descend back downstairs. She knew he would be waiting for her.

Thad stood at the far end of the elegant drawing room as she entered. He came up to her, then turned, and paced the entire length of the room, before returning to where she stood. Rose watched him with a strange, cold compassion, a thin sheet of ice overlaying the deep well of her self-contempt.

"I'm sorry," she offered, because she must.

"You should be," he replied, with barely suppressed savagery. He twisted his body around like a whip, his hand grabbing ahold of her arm. "I never cared about this ….any of this….except for you."

There was no mistaking his sincerity. She suddenly felt lighter. "I know. It's just that …..for me …..trust comes hard." Before the contrition in her eyes, he exhaled, and released her.

"I am sorry, too," he said, his dusky voice giving away none of the tension he had betrayed only moments ago. But Rose was not fooled. She had watched him from childhood, and knew his postures. She knew the tightness of the jaw, and of the fist, and the tension in his neck. Then, it had not been hers to ease.

Now, things were different. She was a trained physician, but she did not know if she would have the nerve to ask him what she needed to know.

The Gods of the Night were kind. From an unknown wellspring, her mother's courage flooded through her, and for once, she did not harness it to the service of her father's pride.

"What would you do, now, if I were not here?"

Thad did not answer. Her gaze fell on a side-table with a bowel of delicate Chinese porcelain, depicting a dragon, one claw raised, mouth open, its forked red tongue extended outward like twin serpents. Its other foot rested possessively on the round Orb of the World.

Rose squared her shoulders, as Scarlett had done that night in Belle's establishment, when she had realized that her entire world was little more than an amusing puppet-show put on for children. Reality - the world of men - was infinitely distant from that small, brightly lit theatre. Infinitely distant, and dark.

Thad took in the gesture, and whatever had animated him drained into the floorboards like sand out of an hourglass. He held up his hand. "Rose …."

She shook her head with determination. "Thad. I can …."

His voice was blacker still than the night. "No, Rose. You cannot. I meant what I said a few days ago, when you came into my room. This is neither the time, nor the place." With an attempt at levity that was as counterfeit as the smile on his lips, he added, softly, "I have never had any intention of feeding you to the wolves. Even if that wolf were me."

She took a step towards him, and placed her hands on his lapels. There was no seduction in her eyes. Instead, the gesture was strangely touching, and terrifyingly intimate. He had regained enough of his composure to remain still, as if she were a doe that would dart back into the thicket if startled.

"What is it that ….calms you?"

He raised his brows, showing that he did not quite understand.

"When you go to ….those women," she clarified, with an effort. Not, as he may have imagined, because of the coarseness of the act itself, but because she realized that nothing could bridge them now but words. "When you are …with them. Which part ….calms you?"

He understood her, now, even if he did not have an answer. "I've never thought about it."

"Do," she commanded. She stepped back from him, and was again regal, and remote.

He turned to the fireplace, his nerveless hands ordering the kindling with the tongues, as he had done that day in the cabin in the woods, calling forth light. She waited.

After an infinitesimal time, he turned back around, and stood up. "Touch …..I suppose. The contact with a woman's skin."

He knew what she would say before her eyes sparked with comprehension. "We can touch."

He spoke down to her, as one would to a child. "Rose ….if we …undress….."

"I didn't mean that," she interrupted, somewhat haughtily. "I understand ….I understand! I meant….we could sit over there, on the sofa. Dressed as we are. And you could put your hands, here." She lifted her small fingers, and pressed them beneath her neck, into the bare skin of her décolleté. Briefly, her fingertips pushed downwards, leaving behind indented crescents in the ivory.

"Rose…."

She walked over to the sofa in an unspoken challenge. He made a noise, almost like a sigh, but he sat down, and pulled her next to him. She leaned her light frame against his shoulder. He spread his hands in the air, and she drew in her breath. When she exhaled, they had already descended heavily onto her skin. She felt their weight, and like her own, his fingers briefly curled inwards, marking her with his nails. Then, he pushed them forward with a sudden thrust, the first joints of his fingers gliding underneath the stiff fabric of the corset that masked the soft curve of her breasts. She felt them rest there, her heart beating rapidly beneath their scalding heat, certain he would, after all, take her up on her first offer. But to her surprise, he did not move. She felt his warm breath stir on her neck, rising and falling, like silver night between them.

After some time, the fire stopped flickering, and nothing but red embers were left in the grate.

~~oo~~

So Ella found them, perhaps half an hour later, barely silhouetted by the dying blaze. They were as motionless, not the flicker of an eyelid betraying that they were more than statues, or figures out of an oil painting by Rembrandt. Ella stared at them for a long time, and had she been a conventional chaperone, their closeness, and the position of Thad's hands would have caused her to cry out in outraged modesty, rousing the house. But she didn't. She only stood in the shadows, and watched them.

The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked away the minutes of the night, and still Ella did not stir. To her surprise, tears silently streamed down her face, and would not stop.