Hi lovelies, it has been a while. I hope you are all well, and busy, and happy. I finally got around to adding a chapter, and mean to finish this now, for there is nothing quite as irksome as an unfinished story. I hope you enjoy.

Thad Butler married his cousin Rose in the simple, whitewashed town church on a balmy summer day in June, surrounded by his family and his people. Fresh paint gleamed all the way up to the tower, where a bell chimed merrily, proclaiming its song throughout the land. There were garlands of roses on the pews, and on the altar there were vases full of them, dark pink and white, overflowing with fragrant splendor. The groom was solemn and dazed; like an orphaned boy showered from above by a multitude of gifts on Christmas morning. The bridewas young, and beautiful, and wore her wreath of lilies and bluebells like a Titania from the Fairy Country. Her father and mother sat side by side in the front row, watching their daughter speak her vows softly, but firmly.

Rhett held Scarlett's hand in his as he watched them, his eyes full of the past.

~~oo~~

At the luncheon afterwards, Thad's mother, Belle Watling sat next to Charles, his father, her face inscrutable, but calm. Her leg stump had healed nicely, and she now used a fitted prosthetic to get around, that she had learned to master with a dogged stubbornness worthy even of a young Scarlett O'Hara. On Ella's lap sat little Rhett James, known to the family as RJ, who attacked the frosted cake with both a spoon, and uncoordinated enthusiasm. Hugh was there, seated just across from Charlotte in her yellow, half-sleeved bridesmaids dress; captivating the conversation of his side of the table by his tales of travels in Northern Africa. The twins chattered merrily with Emma, Hugh's daughter, and Stella, the Baker's young offspring, who had sang at the ceremony, and been invited to join them afterwards. Emma appeared amused. Stella, on the other hand, seemed subdued, intimidated by so much Grand company. Wade had brought Phoebe, who had wanted to attend the wedding despite the discomfort of travel in the later stages of her most recent pregnancy.

Gerry, Scarlett's youngest, had wisely excused himself from the table, on the pretext of not wanting any more frosted cake, knowing there would be plenty left in the kitchen. And it would be quiet, without all the grown-ups nagging at him. Especially, he thought grimly, his aunt Rosemary, who seemed to take pains to find fault with every child's table manners, and some of the grown ups', too. He imagined he could still hear her, and experimentally put his hands over his ears as he walked. Yes. Much better now.

Those still seated at the main table were not as fortunate. "It is the West after all, and they must be reminded of proper standards," Rosemary pronounced to Jane Fontaine, who was grown, and thus prevented by her breeding to cover her ears like Gerry had. To illustrate her point, Rosemary let her gaze sweep around the vastly inferior setting – inferior as compared to, say, society weddings in her beloved Charleston. After reassuring her audience on this point several times, she added fairly, "I imagine my nephew did not want to make it appear too grand, which is very proper in him. One must take care not to appear ostentatious, for little good ever comes of it, besides being quite vulgar, which of course would never do."

After a regal pause, she continued "I do find some of the DRESS styles here to be quite outlandish." She cast a look at her only daughter's admirer, who had clearly not taken his best friend's wedding at a reason to dress very elegantly. Scarlett, seated on her other side, was not attending, but Rhett heard her, and laughed his deep throaty chuckle that Rosemary could take for agreement, if she so chose.

"However," as she had told her long-suffering husband earlier, and in private, "that daughter of yours is fortunate to attract any man's notice, and he is quite well off, so one cannot complain. And I must say," she had added magnanimously, "he does not simper, and has been about in the world, which I vastly prefer in a man. I believe I may come to like him quite well." Her husband had made a noncommittal sound, not daring to admit he already liked Hugh quite well, and felt he would do splendidly for Charlotte.

~~oo~~

In the afternoon there was dancing in the town hall, and the people from the Ranch mingled with the townsfolk, and there was cheering and laughter and wine and woven sacks full flower petals, which the children intermittently grabbed by the handful and threw over the bridal couple, which was, as Perry assured Stella, Great Sport.

It was dusk when the carriage drew up, drawn by two glowing bays, and amidst much cheers and bawdiness, Thad whisked his lady away to start their new life.

Scarlett watched the vehicle draw away in a cloud of dust, and her green eyes were soft and glistening. Rhett squeezed her hand, his own eyes moist.

"I hope", Scarlett started. Then she stopped, for as usual, the right words escaped her just when she needed them.

"Yes," her husband agreed, pulling her closer., and supplying them for her. "I hope, as well. That they will find happiness, as we did."

Scarlett stirred in his arms, rediscovering her contrariness. "I do hope they will be wiser than us!'

Rhett chuckled. "My darling pet….that seems a rather low bar to set them." She scowled, but then gave up and laughed with him. It had been an emotional day for them all.

~~oo~~

Thad carried Rose over the threshold of the cottage, and set her down as if she weighed nothing more than a feather He had of the last few months, secretly, modified and updated the hunting lodge where they had first met to talk privately, into a comfortable honeymoon retreat. She looked around, and attempted to convey her pleasure, but saw only him.

There was a moment of silence, which elevated the night sounds of the cicadas to a cacophony.

"Rose," he said finally, with a voice that seemed oddly unused to speech, "if you knew…"

She lifted her eyes from her suddenly nerveless hands. "But I do know. Every night, away from you. Every night….."

He nodded somewhat ruefully, turning his large frame away from her- to light a lamp on the sideboard, and perhaps to hide his face. When the lamp burned steadily, he straightened, and ran his hand through his hair. "I forget that I was not alone in …..wishing..."

He seemed nervous now, she noted with a small, detached part of herself, he who had always seemed so sure of himself.

"What if," she started.

"Yes"?

She swallowed. "What if it isn't …?"

Thad laughed, caught her meaning, and looked suddenly more at ease. He pulled her to the sofa, next to him. "It won't be, at first," he teased. "You do remember what we talked about?"

She made a face, like the girl she had been, when she was lectured. "Practice."

"Indeed." His hand stroked her neck, as if calming a nervy, high-bred hunter. "This will be your first time, after all."

Not yours, she thought. There were lifetimes he had lived before her, stretching out like forgotten trails into the past.

Not even the first time he would do this with someone he loved. He had loved Tasha, and perhaps others.

"Rose," he said, as if hearing her. "I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, nor waited as long for anyone." His hands had moved to her back, almost unnoticed, expertly untying small hooks and bows. She stood up, the silky fabric of her wedding dress pooling at her feet. She emerged, even more fairy-like in her underclothes. His hands stripped those as well, with graceful efficiency.

"Come to me, Rose." In how many dreams, had it been like this?

She stepped forward once, and then again, before he swept her up, and carried her to the large four-poster bed. She attempted to laugh, but there was no breath left. Yet for all of his urgency, she noticed he seemed to proceed in small bursts, giving her time to catch up, in between. "It is like a dance", he murmured his lips roaming over her neck, her exposed chest. "There are…. steps,….." His hands, inhumanly knowing, on her body. The slow, whispered, sensual words, full of passion and promise. And then she heard it again, like her mother before her, a lifetime ago, a crescendo, that roaring in her ears, like a distant waterfall, drowning out everything else but them, here, now, at this moment, where all time stopped.

~~oo~~

Scarlett was the first to notice their return. She had stayed behind with Phoebe, who was feeling the heat, when Rhett and Ella had taken the children to the lake to swim. So she had been present when the carriage drew up, ejecting Rose, and later Thad, who had stayed behind helped the coachman with the luggage. Thad properly withdrew into his office after greeting Scarlett, leaving mother and daughter to talk.

However, once they were left alone and the pleasantries out of the way, Scarlett found she was at a loss. "How are you, darling"? she tried, faintly. Then she blinked as Rose turned to her, handing her the tea she had poured, briefly stunned by the change. And yet, she knew not what it was, for Rose looked exactly the same.

"I don't know what it IS," Scarlett complained to her husband, later. "She hasn't changed, except she has, Rhett. It's beyond infuriating that I don't know!"

Rhett merely grinned his most devilish grin, the one that concealed.

~~oo~~

"There," Charles said, to Belle, as they got ready for the night. "The boy looks good, don't he. That make you feel better?"

Belle scowled. "Yer ain't convincin' me that girl got what it take ter keep a man happy, Charles. No matter what she now moves like er fancy woman on a River boat". Even though her attempt to save Rose's life, and Rose's saving of hers after the shoot-out, had lead to a peace treaty between them, Belle would never be one of the lovely Rose's most fervent admirers.

Charles shook is head. For all of his seeming lassitude (or, as his niece would say, his laziness), he would always say what he meant, and Belle liked that about him. "She's just a young'un. An' he's grown up different, an' she can't change that. Except she'll feel it, being the nervy type." And with that enigmatic utterance, he blew out the lamp, and reached for her.

~~oo~~

Rhett found her alone in the sitting room, perched idly on a sofa, as everyone else was still changing for dinner. She looked like something out of an oil paining, he thought, fondly. The blue dress of velvet and pearls, a wedding present of his, became her. The cut was slightly different from what she used to favor, as were the materials, marking the change from maiden to young wife, but it suited her.

"Rose."

She looked up, and reached for both of his hands in greeting: a new, fluid motion. "Daddy."

"Are you…..all right?" It came out gruffer than he had intended.

She smiled. "Thad sent me out alone here so you could ask me that, you know."

"Yes," he drawled, not to be side-tracked. "Are you?"

"It isn't too difficult after all, the whole being married thing", she teased, almost off-handedly. "Thad informed me there are ….errrrr…..steps. And….there are!"

"Rose," her father groaned, in unfeigned agony. "Please do not…. expand upon the details. I only want to know….."

Rose laughed, wryly. "If I'm… real, now?"

He nodded, silently.

She glanced at him. "Yes. And of course as it turns out , it wasn't that simple, after all." After a brief pause she added, almost idlely, "it never is, you know?"

He waited, with his quizzical look.

"I thought….that once I knew…..that…..I'd know. But…"

"Yes?"

She paused once more. "It may not be me."

At her father's raised eyebrows, she added, "and please stop looking at me like that, Daddy, or I will have to give you all the details, and I swear you may never recover."

"Thank you, but no." Something like a shudder went through him. "However, my dear, I do not believe it is entirely beyond your intellectual capacity to convey to me metaphorically what you mean, without lacerating a father's tender sensibilities more than necessary."

She nodded approvingly, of what, he knew not, perhaps his adroit phrasing. "The piano cannot help making music, can it?"

Rhett was silent. Then, "I would think it depends on the player."

She smiled faintly. "That is what I mean."

Her father's eyebrows rose even further, and then dropped. "You mean you now wonder if….asking if you were real, was the wrong question."

She considered, then gave a brief, thoughtful nod. "Just in this, mind you. Yes." She glanced up at him quickly, watchful like a cat by a mouse hole, in an expression her mother would have recognized. But there was nothing in his face except Rhett's habitual blandness. Rose gave a brisk, impatient shrug, a throw-back to the ungainliness of her girlhood. "Look at me, complaining that …marital relations are going too well, after all my angst."

Her father shook his head. Then, a thought seemed to strike him, and something akin to dread flashed over his face.

She caught it immediately. "Daddy?"

He swallowed. "Rose….did Thad ever speak to you about…why he and I did not speak, for so long?"

She frowned. "Not in any detail. I had always assumed it was because he rightfully suspected you of orchestrating the release of the man who killed…Tasha." She was proud that her voice did not stumble over the name of the young Mulatto girl he had loved before her, and whom he'd lost as the result of an age-old vendetta against Rhett. "Thomas. Was that not his name?"

Her father said nothing for a moment, then nodded. "You are quite right," he said, smoothly. "And I am very glad we are now in so much better a place. We can all forget about the past, and move forward."

Any less discerning observer would have been …entirely taken in.