Author's Note: Here is another chapter.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing.

6/22/23

Rhett went out to bring the carriage around, while Scarlett went in and told Wade and Ella that she was going for a ride with Rhett. Wade was none too pleased with her decision, but he didn't protest much. He did admonish her to be careful and to guard her heart.

Rhett met her at the door and walked her out to the carriage, lifting her up into the seat. It was the open carriage, with no walls and roof to block their view of the city. "I see you've purchased yourself a one-horse shay." Rhett said as he swung himself up beside her.

"It was more practical to have something light and easy to drive." She responded as Rhett urged the horse into motion.

As they drove Scarlett began pointing out changes in the city; she proudly linked the progresses as her own for the town that she claimed as her own. Rhett held the reins loosely in one hand, as he took one of Scarlett's in his own. "I think we need to have a serious discussion. Wade had some very harsh words for me. And the more I consider, the more I realize that he wasn't wrong. And it has made me wonder, if I wasn't missing out on more than I realized. I thought that I knew everything, but perhaps it was just my arrogance talking. If anything, seeing how you and the children interact now, I have to admit that you've done something right. I only wish that we had all been as close as you are now with them."

Scarlett turned to him, stunned. "You? Actually admitting that you are wrong? Have I died? Am I dreaming? Or am I delirious with fever?" She teased lightly, keeping the peace between them. "I never imagined I would see the day that Rhett Butler admitted any fault."

"No, my…. My Scarlett… You aren't dreaming. Wade told me that my 50s was a little late to finally grow up, and I have to admit that I believe he wasn't far off from the mark." He admitted to her

She stared at him pensively. "Something really has to have changed in you." She looked down at their joined hands. "All through the war, all the years that I knew you, I was always watching you, trying to figure out what I felt about you. It was all so different from anyone I had ever known. You were like no one I had ever met. And I think looking back now that I loved you even then. I just didn't know enough about what love, at least the love between a man and a woman was really to recognize it as such."

He stared at the road in front of them, flicking the reins, "I need to know, Scarlett. Do you hate me? I don't doubt that Wade hates me. But if you hate me, if everything I've done has made you hate me, then that is the one reason that I should abandon this attempt at forcing myself back into your life."

She looked up at him, and he turned his face to her. Something raw and vulnerable revealed in his eyes. "I don't hate you, Rhett. There are so many times that I was so angry, and I thought that I hated you. I wanted to hate you, but I couldn't. I might have hated you after Rough and Ready. But even then it was really just how angry and scared I was. And then when I got home, everything had changed, and I had no one to lean on. Thinking of hating you was something to help me focusing on fighting when it seemed that all was lost "

"I was an idiot. I hated myself for leaving you there. I hated myself for joining the army, when the war was already lost. It was pointless and stupid." He rubbed his thumb in a circle on the back of her hand. "I wouldn't blame you for hating me. You could have died. Wade could have died. It is a miracle that Melly and Beau survived. It was foolish and arrogant of me to leave you with a staggering, half dead mule and a cart on the verge of collapse between two armies." He squeezed her hand and looked forward into the distance. "There were so many nights after I left when I was miserable laying on the cold ground, kicking myself for my choice to leave you. I could have caught up with them after taking you home, making sure that you were safe, but I don't think I could have left you there if I'd arrived to see what you did."

She leaned into his side, enjoying the moment of introspection. "Rhett, I was so scared." Her voice came out soft and husky. "I was so scared. And everyone was looking to me for answers, and I just wanted to lay down beside my mother and weep. I wanted Mother to hold me, and tell me that it was just a nightmare, that I would wake in the morning and the world would be right again."

Rhett released her hand and snaked his free arm around her, and turned and softly kissed her forehead. "You've not really told me that much about how it was. You mentioned some things over the years, but you kept most of it bottled up."

She pulled away, and he looked into her eyes that were welling with tears. "It took years for me to process everything. I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't look back. Looking back before the war hurt so much, because I just wanted life to be simple and easy and safe once again. But talking about the siege and the end of the war, that was worse. It still is. Because when I talk about it, I relive it. And it was a terrible time. After you left, the farther that we got from Atlanta, the darkness just deepened and then there was smoke and fog, and I couldn't see what was just beyond us. That has to be where my nightmares began because that nightmare was reality."

"You're safe now." he reassured. His hand slowly rubbed circles on her back, and he could feel how bony her back had become.

"I was still a child. At least that was how it felt. And I was escaping to be comforted from the nightmare by my mother, and she was gone. I didn't even get to say goodbye. She was just gone. And father might as well have been. And the Yankees had taken almost all of the food. And I thought Melanie was going to die and leave me with a newborn that I had no help to take care of. Sue and Careen were both still so ill that they were bed bound. Thank God for Dilcey and Pork! Dilcey was able to be a wet nurse for Beau and Pork risked his life to get us food, I know he did."

"What about Mammy?" Rhett questioned.

"I'm so thankful she was there. But she was scared and not used to not having a real master or mistress. And she was looking for me to bear the burden, and I didn't know how. If it had been normal times, maybe it would have been different. Mother did train me how to run a plantation the best she could. I could budget and I've always excelled at ciphering. But there is nothing they could ever prepare you for trying to hold everything together when there are armies fighting a war surrounding you, in the middle of the street and on the fields and yards where you once rode horses and boasted and played. And both sides were talking whatever they needed, when you have next to nothing to begin with." She shivered despite the warmth of the air around them. And she went silent with a faraway look in her eyes. "I was still such a child when you left me, but when I woke up that first morning back home at Tara, I put those childish dreams away."

"I still think there is more that happened than you are telling me." Rhett bristled. "As much as you've told me, I still think more happened. The secrets aren't needed any more."

She startled at the expression on his face and shrunk away from him. But he pulled back. "I'm not upset with you. I'm upset that you clearly went through something terrible. What is it?"

She lifted her chin as more tears filled her eyes. "There… there was a Yankee deserter, not too long after we arrived home. I found him rummaging in mother's rosewood box, looking for something to steal. And when he saw me, he started towards me…" She gathered herself for a moment, and Rhett allowed her the time to find her words and the courage to continue. "He started following me and I had no other choice." She went silent again before mustering more courage. "I shot him. I killed a man, Rhett." He looked at her surprise. This was not the secret that he had anticipated. "I can still smell the acrid smell of the powder mixed with the overpowering smell of blood. I can still hear the blast and feel the ringing in my ears and how my hand hurt from the recoil." She fidgeted with her hands. "Melly was such a cool liar and told my sisters that I'd accidentally shot the gun, and she helped me drag him out to the arbor and bury him. She could barely stand, and she climbed her bed and helped me drag him out of the house and bury him. No one else knows, or at least I don't think anyone knows. Except Wade. Wade could have seen something, he was in the house with Melly, but he was so little, I hope that he didn't."

Rhett clutched the reins tightly, his knuckles turning white. "At least my confidence in your abilities to protect yourself was not unfounded. I'm glad that you were able to protect yourself. But I'm willing to bet that Wade does remember something. He's angry at me for leaving you at Rough and Ready, and as good as his memory is of that moment, he might actually know about it. But he wouldn't want to risk telling me, since I'm sure he thinks that I'd try to use it against you." His muscles were taut in his jaw, as he reached out a comforting hand. "I'm sorry that you had to experience that."

"It isn't only that. The Yankees came and tried to loot us, but we had enough warning that we sent everyone out to the swamp. But they tried to take Charles' sword from Wade, and I had to beg the Yankee soldiers for it. I know Wade remembers that. He's told Ella about it. But then the Yankees lit the kitchen on fire, and my skirt caught fire as I was trying to put it out. There is more, but I really would rather not think about that time."

"I was wrong to push you, so whatever suits you, my dear." Rhett soothed, as his conscience picked at him more, knowing the trials that she'd experienced. He has been a fool to leave her. The entire nation has been fools to fight. He imagined that every household on the south had terrible stories of what they survived without ever stepping foot on a battlefield

They continued their drive in peaceful silence, as Rhett meandered down the road to where the Mills were. "Scarlett, Wade remembers when you had your accident. He blames me. He told me that he heard everything, and that you were crying for me, but he was the only one in the room, and I was too drunk for him to bother."

He could see as she tried to process this information, and she chewed on her bottom lip and she twisted her hands together. "I don't know what you want me to say." she finally exclaimed. "I ruined his childhood, and he lived all of his years in chaos until after Melanie died when I finally had to fill the roll that she had always filled in my stead. I know that I wasn't a good mother. I clearly didn't protect him as I should have if he remembers all of that. He probably knows that I'm a murderer, knows about the solider and then blames me for Frank's death too."

"No! You aren't to blame for Frank at all. Those men made that choice to clear out the woods. And that is not what I was trying to say. I was the one who ruined everything. You were happy about the baby. Looking back, I can see it. I should have known, I should have at least considered. Three months and the first thing I did was to insult you. If I could have just kept my mouth shut maybe things would have been so different."

"It doesn't matter. What is done is done." Scarlett returned stoically.

"It does matter. It matters because I was a fool. I will carry the guilt of that day to my grave. Wade is right. There are many reasons to hate me. I'm just trying to see if there are any reasons for you to not hate me." He finished despondently.

"Why did you do that?" Scarlett allowed a little of the anguish she was feeling slip into her carefully controlled voice. "Why? I was so excited to see you and see Bonnie. I couldn't wait to tell you about the baby. I knew you would be thrilled. And even though I didn't know how to explain what I was feeling, I know now that I was in love with you. And I loved our baby. And I thought it was our chance to start over. I've run those moments in my head over and over through the years, trying to figure out how I could have saved the baby. If I could have just not risen to your bait, even if I had been standing at another angle, if I'd been anywhere but the top of the staircase…" She shuddered. "I still have nightmares about that fall."

"As do I" Rhett supplied.

"And then I wanted you. I wanted you to come and save me. I'd always felt safe when you were there, and I was drifting in this other world of fever and pain and I just wanted you to come and save me. It was bewildering."

"I was too afraid to be near you, to touch you. I felt so guilty that just having a conversation with you seemed monumental. I'd nearly killed you, and I forced myself on you before that.."

"You didn't force yourself on me. I was willing…" Scarlett interrupted.

"I would have taken you anyway, even if you hadn't been willing. My feelings for you were so much bigger than anything I'd felt before, and so I had to distance myself from you. I thought it was the only way to save you. And so I poured all of that love into Bonnie, and even then I was afraid. And after she died, I knew that I was poison, that I was the reason the baby had died, that Bonnie had died, and the reason you almost died. I drank myself into oblivion, and only when you were away was I able to realize that I needed to escape before I drank myself to death."

She studied his face in silence, noting the fine lines around his eyes, eyes that didn't look like they had seen much joy in far too long. "You've changed, Rhett. You never would have admitted any of this before." Scarlett observed.

"I'm not the only one that changed. Everything about you is different. You remind me of a mixture of what you've told me about both of your parents. There is a closeness with Wade and Ella that you never had with your mother, like the relationship with your pa. But they adore you, almost to the point of idolization as you had with your mother. And they've changed. Wade was correct when he said that I wouldn't have known him on the street. He looks so much like Charles, but he's so much like you."

"Really? He reminds me so much of you. He looks like Charles, but he is calm and cool and stoic like you. And I know that he is an impressive poker player." She offered.

"Admittedly, that conversation in the study held shades of me, but he is so much more controlled and wise than I was at his age. I was a hellion, which does explain why my father was so hard on me, but it still doesn't justify it."

Scarlett shrugged, "he had to grow up far too quickly. He helped to raise me. And with all that he has been through, it would be impossible for it not to change him. He found his backbone, and you'd appreciate the lectures that he has given Ashley over the years."

Rhett chuckled at the thought of Wade lecturing Ashley, "I guess it is easiest to imagine that time is standing still for everyone else when you go years without seeing them. I still think of him as being a little boy, and he isn't. He's become a man. And Ella was so shy and silly, and now she's become a lovely young woman. She reminds me a great deal of you when I first met you, but I think she's got a better head on her shoulders." Rhett offered as he turned the carriage around on the road. "She has your eyes and quite the spirit."

"After you left, everyone was gone. I had to step up and fill the roles in my children's life that someone else had always filled. And finally, I was able to break through to them. I tried before the accident, but they just seemed so scared of me. I guess that loss finally made me human." She mused. "I remember watching the Tarleton girls teasing with their mother on our way to the last barbeque at Twelve Oaks, and I wished that I could be like that, and then after the hardships stopped dominating everything in my life, and I could finally breathe again, we found our way together. I became more like the mother I wanted to be. I always did want to be like my mother."

"I don't know that I would believe the conversation we're having now, if I wasn't here." Rhett grinned, "but I like the changes."

"And I promise, I've not turned into Melly. I love my children, but I certainly lose my temper. They know by now when I need my space, and when it is all right to tease me." Scarlett smiled softly, "I didn't really know how to be a mother. And then everything was terrifying about the world around us. I didn't mean to be a snappish witch to them, but I know at times I was."

Rhett shrugged, "And who doesn't get short when they are ill or stressed or afraid? I painted you as a terrible mother, when it really wasn't fair to do so." He clicked the reins and the carriage began to speed up. "I just wish that Bonnie had been able to spend time with you now that you are finally able to be the parent you always meant to be."

"I wish every day that I had had more time with her, but bf I hadn't lost everything, maybe I would never have learned to appreciate what I do have."

Rhett leaned over and quickly kissed her cheek. "I'd better get you home before Wade comes after me." He chuckled. "But in all seriousness, I do need to make amends. It has only been a day that I've been back, and Wade and Ella have already had some eye opening discussions with me." There was little traffic on the road as they traveled. "I was so broken when I left. And even as much as I wanted to come back, I couldn't relinquish my pride until after mother died. It was just days later that I had a sailing accident, and I briefly thought that I wasn't going to survive. And the thought of dying alone, and the thought of never seeing my family again was the impetus to finally make my way home after all of this time. I don't want to die alone. And I don't want you to die alone. So, if you want me to leave, I will leave. But I want you to know that I'm sorry for the way that I treated you, and I'm sorry for the way that I treated the children. My only excuse is that I was drowning in my grief and guilt, and I was convinced that you would forget about me. I thought I was protecting you by staying away." He grimaced. "No, that isn't fair. I did have those thoughts, but I was a coward, and I'm still a coward if I try to hide behind that as an excuse. I didn't want to be rejected. I wanted to come back, but I didn't think that I could. And yet, I was the only one stopping me."

"I found peace, and I finally found a little grace. It is amazing how much forgiveness is available when you take the time to ask for it. The children forgave me. They gave me so much grace for my failings. They saw me as a human in need. They really saw me. Maybe in time, we can all forgive you."

Rhett slowed the carriage as they approached the house. As soon as it came to a stop, he helped Scarlett from the carriage, and then for just a moment, he held her a little too close and reveled in what a difference ten years had made.