A/N - We are back to our regular rating. On with the plot! FYI we are taking a bit of a darker turn here, but remember, it's always darkest before the light ;)

Disclaimer: Nada mine.

Chapter 15

Poor weather and isolation began to wear on them all. The children became bored and fussy more often, the limited diet and indoor confinement taking its toll.

Their moodiness combined with the necessary daytime drudgery had Scarlett snapping at them all as she inwardly raged against the bitter cold and the snow that would not melt and kept coming at intervals that appeared never-ending.

"You were the belle of five counties, or so you claim," Rhett drawled one long afternoon spent inside with their noisy joint brood as Scarlett struggled with her temper. "And even I will admit you are most impressive in action. Why don't you demonstrate some of that charm on the children?"

Scarlett glared at him, opened her mouth to upbraid, and then closed it. Was that what Rhett did, charmed the children with all his affable interactions? Her eyes lit up with the challenge. She could play that game and win.

And it worked, for a short time. But after a couple of days filled with amiable teasing and cajoling and outrageous compliments, complete with dimples and sparkling green-eyed promises, her attempts did not make as much of a dent. Even the formidable combination of both Rhett and Scarlett's considerable skills could not always sway the dispirited visages of their young.

Scarlett knew a moment of near panic when Rhett declared he had once again run out of his usual evening anecdotes during this most inconvenient time, yet her husband managed to prevail. He claimed to be inspired by Scarlett's night of childhood reminiscences and, in an unheard of move, began mining from his youth, not the sanitized misspent one he'd always expounded upon, but of himself as a small boy, young and impressionable, a different creature than he'd ever let any of them see before.

He told stories of his pirate grandfather from the perspective of a very young boy, tales that made Wade's eyes shine and sent Scarlett awash in memories of their time at Tara when the child followed her around with that tattered book. She wished she could go back and read that book to him, but wishes such as those were wasted efforts and she shook them off.

Rhett spoke of how he stood on the beach at Sullivan's Island and watched his grandfather's fleets go out at dawn and come in at dusk, how he played in the salt marshes and learned of nature in the swamps of Charleston. He described the smell of a salt marsh in such minute detail Scarlett almost found herself standing on a sandbar in her mind, breathing it in.

She looked at him with new eyes as she realized that as Tara had been the Eden of her youth, the waterways of Charleston had been his, and the wound of his casting out became infinitely deeper when he felt he could not return for so long.

So he swept them away to the coastal waters, the air rich with the odor of malodorous primordial muck, and spoke of wading in tidal pools and pluffmud with egrets and herons flying over his head, of hunting for treasures, shells and old coins and sea glass; and a few years later, of swimming alongside floating pelicans and capricious dolphins until he could hardly manage another stroke.

He explained how the craving for adventure wove itself into the fabric of his soul when he learned to read maps before he learned to read books.

Their evenings were filled with the stories of sea and salt water and sun. In Rhett's powerful and rich retelling, it was as if the earth shifted and the air warmed.

When he ran out of his boyhood tales he began reciting passages from novels. Soon he enlisted a reluctant Scarlett to act out the scenes, and then they became plays. The children brightened as they all prepared for the nightly entertainment and spoke of it during the long hours leading up to it. Scarlett watched Rhett as he lit up the dark wooden walls and brought a much larger world inside the limited one they currently inhabited.

It was all better when they knew a show would be coming that night, and Rhett included the children in the acting, and everyone had a part of it. Bonnie and Ella became the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels and the scurvy crew in Moby-Dick, with Wade as second in command to Scarlett, and Rhett always captain of the ship.

Wade recognized many of the novels his stepfather all but narrated from memory; Bonnie demonstrated a precocious penchant for drama, yet the surprising star proved to be Ella, who contributed an element of whimsy and fanciful thinking that added valuable embellishments and color to almost all productions.

After the children went to sleep Rhett continued to take Scarlett away with that honeyed tongue, relaying the less innocent stories he wouldn't tell the little ones before their bedtimes lest he disturb their dreams, of forbidden places, of unforgiving seas and barbarous coasts and the barbarians he met therein.

"I know it is not your forte, but imagine, Scarlett, just close your eyes and picture what I am painting for you," he murmured as he stroked her hair, and she fell under his spell and sailed with him, again, to new places, foreign lands and peoples both darkly compelling and bright, all while cocooned in his arms.

During the day Scarlett realized she wanted to show Rhett her gratitude for all his troubles, and studied this urge during her few spare moments. What could she give him other than herself? He seemed quite satisfied with just that, and everything she did to keep them all alive and well, of course.

But even in this wilderness, he'd found gifts. Surely there was something she could do; and, not accustomed to feeling anything approaching gratefulness, she despaired at the lack of options.

She wanted to thank him for the hope, the light, the optimism he injected into what could have very well been a stark and bleak survival. And they would have survived, just as they had at Tara, yet doubtlessly coming out shopworn and battered and damaged at the end just the same. The difference here was Rhett.

But he was conceited enough, was he not?

At times she did not feel thankful at all because—oh but he was a rascal! And he deviled her constantly, and both in and out of the sheets. Her face grew hot at the thought. All he had to do was give her a single searing look to make her struggle to maintain decorum while she performed her tasks and looked after her progeny. A passing quirk of his lips told her precisely what he was thinking of, and he knew exactly what she was thinking of as well. Brawny arms that could hold her in the most interesting of positions, skin and flesh and long dark legs intertwined with her own, those hands, that mouth …

Rhett owned her, owned her to her bones. Yet she must keep up some semblances of pride and propriety for the sake of her brood, and herself.

At night she was his, gave herself over completely, found herself whispering gossamer-light words back to him more often than not. She knew she played with fire, yet this fire played back. She knew the fear for the first time in her life, that her love might be turned against her and misused, that Rhett might one day look at her coldly again and tell her he no longer loved her and would seek companionship elsewhere as hers no longer held his interest nor desire.

The irony of these fears did not escape her.

For the most part, Scarlett pushed such concerns back and down and lived in the moment as was her nature. Yet this was not the simple infatuation she had experienced with Ashley. It was—it was complex, and understanding complexity was not something that came naturally to her, and as a result not something she trifled with or on which she wasted her time. But as with the imaginings, she knew she could master and express it if she worked bullheaded at it hard enough.

Scarlett continued to struggle with the menu as well, combing her mind for inventive ways to serve the same old things. She'd always taken pride in her offspring's appearance and It pained her to see her family in their worn clothes. Especially Rhett, because the children didn't seem to mind and she knew he did, he had to, as vain as he was and as much attention he'd always paid to his grooming.

She mended as best she could and took extra care with his boots and few garments. Yet Rhett in the wilderness was much like Rhett at home. He took care of himself and appeared to want for nothing, despite their rather desperate circumstances.

So what to give? At finishing school she indeed learned a compliment to be a gift. But Rhett would never go for empty flattery, and if she said anything about his body or skills thereof he would tease. She wanted to thank him, she wanted to compliment him. He'd been easier on her, when before she couldn't make a move without some snide or nasty comment, yet she had no doubt his good humor would disappear if he felt she was coquetting or practicing insincerity.

It furrowed her brow at times, this conundrum of what to give Rhett. She stared at him, frowning, and he caught her.

"What is worrying you?"

"Nothing," she said, but nothing was exactly what this man never missed.

One night after a colorful recollection of a Madagascar feast his grandfather had provided one summer evening when he returned from a long trip, complete with Sicilian oranges and Cuban bananas cooked in rum and cane sugar with dates and nuts, the children began reminiscing about the things they missed. Scarlett considered this dangerous territory.

"No point," she admonished briskly. "We have enough and we'll be going home soon–"

"Let them speak," Rhett interjected. "It won't hurt anything for one evening."

Once they began it seemed they would never stop. Ella missed bonbons and hub wafers. Wade, when pressed, admitted to still craving a drumstick and rice and gravy just as he had during the war despite his birthday feast, and Bonnie wanted—everything.

Scarlett didn't care to see her children's faces rife with want and unhappiness; it irritated her and made her testy, for reasons she did not explore. So she tiredly promised to make maple syrup and molasses candy with the snow, pheasant drumsticks and acorn flour-thickened gravy, mashed rutabagas flavored with fat and a tiny bit of the tinned milk as the butter had long gone; and that would have to do.

It made no difference, of course. They continue to speak of home and hankerings.

"What do you miss, Mother?" Wade asked, and she regarded him with incredulity for a moment before responding almost by rote.

"I'll worry about what I miss when we get back and I can do something about it, Wade Hampton. I might go crazy if I think about it now."

"You must think about it sometimes," Rhett said, and she heard the silky provocation in his voice once again. "It can do a body good to voice its wants and let others know what is going on inside the heart and mind. You might find more understanding that way." He gave her a lazy smile. "That is if you have the courage."

Goad her, would he? Rhett was one to talk! As if he let others know what was behind those fathomless black eyes that saw so much and gave so little away. Unless he was jeering, of course.

Yet he had been better, she had to admit, with her in private, and with his stories that revealed even more.

What did she miss? Too many things to enumerate yet all her family stared, waiting for the answer.

She missed hot water she didn't have to tote herself, she missed plentiful, rich food prepared by another's hand, she missed not worrying about washing all their now-tattered clothing or sheets or dishes or who had to take Bonnie and Ella to an outdoor privy for the twentieth time that day in the raging wind, she missed being able to breathe fresh air without it hurting her lungs, she missed fine clothes and jewelry and a mansion fully staffed with servants and bursting with delicacies, she missed privacy for the love of all that was holy, she missed living the life of a lady of her station, instead of eking out this crude and base existence of menial labor—

"I miss Mammy and Melly," she said, and realized with a start that she meant it.

Possibly she couldn't have uttered anything worse as the mere mention of Mammy and Melly sent Ella and Bonnie into wailing that threatened to shake the rafters. Rhett endeavored to soothe them.

"We all have people we miss, and undoubtedly they miss us as well," he said jovially as he pulled a little one up on each knee. "Why, there may be some who may even miss us more than we miss them."

Scarlett shot Rhett a sharp look, only to find him returning her stare in a bemused fashion before he turned his attention back to the children.

She had to wonder briefly what the people who depended on her were doing without her signature on their checks, and how Tara would be getting ready for the planting; she and Will always discussed it this time of year. Again, there was no point, yet her mind lingered.

She turned away from Rhett and directed her gaze to Wade as he looked on, stoic, though she detected a minute tremble in the corner of his mouth. He did not speak of his beloved aunt, or of Beau, or even of Bernie the Saint Bernard, she realized, and she knew it to be weighing on him now that she thought about it. Which was all Rhett's fault, she added in her mind and grimaced again.

Such a little man, a young man really, and Scarlett thought not for the first time how unfair that he had to go through such hardships not once, but twice in his short life.

"We've been here before, have we not?" She reached over and squeezed Wade's hand. "Yet we made it, we are survivors together again, you and I, and I daresay we're cut from the same cloth in more ways than anyone has ever realized."

Wade looked up and smiled. She felt Rhett's gaze over the little girls' heads.

"The boys back home will be jealous when they hear of all your adventures, I guarantee it." Scarlett hesitated a beat before ruffling her son's hair somewhat awkwardly.

"I have learned so much about hunting and shooting," Wade admitted. "Not to mention the man lessons," he glanced shyly at his stepfather.

"Wade has become a fine shot, and a skilled trapper," Rhett agreed. "I daresay none of the boys back home will have stories that compare."

Wade nodded, then glanced back at his mother. "Do you really think they are missing us?"

"Oh yes, terribly. I'm certain they can't wait until we get home." Unless they presume we're dead, that is. "And Pork is surely tired of walking the dog!"

"Pork!" Ella lamented. "And Prissy!" Scarlett tried to contain a snort.

Bonnie began to wail anew and Scarlett gave Rhett another full-on glare. They'd never get these children to sleep.

"And Bernie," Bonnie sobbed. She did love Wade's dog. "Ima ride Bernie again and again when we get home."

"No, you won't." Wade glowered at his baby sister. "He's not a puppy anymore, and you're too big, you'll hurt his back."

"I am so gonna ride Bernie when we get home," Bonnie forgot her tears and stamped her foot in a show of high temper rarely seen since they left Atlanta, corn-flower blue eyes blazing and tiny jaw squared. "And Ima ride that big kitty-cat in the woods when I catch it."

Scarlett froze. "What kitty-cat?" She looked at Wade and Ella.

"She says a kitty watches her from the trees when we're playing," Wade said. "But I've never seen it."

Bonnie could be speaking of a mountain lion or a bobcat, or—Scarlett felt faint. Rhett had mentioned cougars the first night they spent there. And Ella and Bonnie are both so small.

"Ella?" Rhett asked, kneeling to her level.

"No," Ella looked from her mother to Rhett. "There's never anything there when I look either."

"You should have told us-—" Scarlett proceeded to admonish the children, but Rhett shushed her.

"Bonnie," he turned and held his daughter's shoulders. "Tell us about this kitty."

Bonnie preened as she usually did when all eyes were on her. "He's huge," she shared breathlessly. "And—and he has giant red eyes and dretful teeth and claws like daggers and a collar—a necklace made of bones like the savages in your stories, Daddy. But he wants to play with me and he has the softest black velvet cloak," she stopped here and bent over, pretending to pet a big cat wearing such a cloak.

"And he wants me to ride him and hold onto it." She tilted her head and addressed her father earnestly, her still-wet cheeks a powerful weapon. "I need you to catch him, Daddy, so I can."

Scarlett relaxed imperceptibly and met Rhett's eyes. He set Bonnie and Ella down with their few bedraggled toys and pulled Scarlett aside.

"Perhaps we have been a bit over-theatrical of late," he admitted. "But I will check in the morning. Of course, there are big cats here, this is their habitat." At Scarlett's alarmed expression, he went on. "Though I doubt one is watching us. I always look and haven't noticed any such tracks nearby, but I'll search further out. The bears are hibernating for the winter and I've spied the tracks of a wolf or two, but not close. And nothing has tried to get into the smokehouse."

He glanced out the window at the night. "By and large the predators appear to avoid this cabin, probably because of the loggers who live here during the season and who have undoubtedly hunted them in the past." His swarthy face darkened and he lowered his voice so that only Scarlett could hear. "Mostly they avoid people. But if there's one hanging about, I'll track it and kill it. That you can count on."

Scarlett listened carefully and nodded. This whole affair could well be the stuff of a very small child's overactive fantasies, and if the others had never seen it .. but still, Bonnie's tale was a reason for concern.

"I'll leave at dawn tomorrow," Rhett added in that implacable tone that would not be swayed. "And may not be back until dusk."

Scarlett suddenly remembered hearing a passing comment at the resort—one that she'd dismissed as improbable hearsay at the time—that mountain lions had been reported to grow nearly as large as a man in the Adirondacks, though certainly that could not mean as large as her husband; still, big enough if there was a grain of truth to it.

She grabbed his arm as he turned away. "You will be careful, won't you, Rhett?"

"My dear," he said as he turned back around with a slight smirk and flash of white teeth, but she stopped him before he spoke further, no patience for his boastings or swagger.

"Don't joke."

He started to say something else, and then inexplicably did not. Instead, he lifted her hand from his arm and kissed the back of it, his eyes never leaving her face. Something he found there must have satisfied him because he leaned down and bestowed another kiss on her forehead, this one so chaste and pure in its intent that her heart clenched and her breath stuttered in response.

Rhett did indeed spend the entire next day tracking, to little avail. He found a few prints, but nothing, he said, that could be traced to a single cat. Over the next few days, he checked for fresh prints of any description around the cabin and surrounding woods, but the snow had been quite trampled back and forth by other wildlife and themselves and no big cat prints were discernible.

Nevertheless, he and Scarlett both stayed on guard and never let the children play by themselves outside for a minute. After several days they relaxed a bit when no evidence was found and life resumed as before, yet with more watchful eyes.

Soon, though, they nearly forgot about the entire ordeal as peace ensued and the nightly plays continued. Rhett had read innumerable books and remembered each one in startling detail, and dare she say they all became better at acting, at imagining, at all of it.

Scarlett wondered what the people of Atlanta would think if they could see them all now and hear the laughter and revelry that echoed into the hills outside this humble fire-lit cabin every evening, in this remote place that they had made their refuge and their home.

They lived like this for a while, and it became the best of them, at least so far.

Yet from time to time, Scarlett would see Rhett look out the window or the door at the desolate landscape and she knew him to be restless, a tiger in a cage. It made her heart empty and her mouth dry.

Her nightmare of running in the fog returned, to her chagrin, and she told herself to stop worrying so foolishly.

But still.

Every time she caught Rhett looking across the horizon with that expression she knew a cold, seeping dread.

No doubt he had spring fever. But as she kept reminding him, and herself, it was not spring.

Yet.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

Adding this disclaimer here: Mountain lions and cougars are the same creature. I am mostly a naturalistic person and do not promote shooting wildlife unnecessarily. Cougar attacks in the US are rare, with only 27 fatal attacks documented in the past 100 years. Were there more attacks in the 1800s, before we started taking all their habitats and killing them off? I dunno because I can't find documentation, but I am fairly sure there were, and plenty of urban myths exaggerating the numbers and sizes as well. Please remember this is fiction.

Fun facts:

Hello, my lovelies! I'm going to sweet-talk you a bit here. Consider this chapter your Easter prezzie, a little candy-filled egg. But with no chocolate inside! Read on for deets that may or may not have tiny connections to this chapter, but overall are related (sort of) to the era of GWTW and its fics. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Necco wafers (then called hub wafers) were available during the Civil War. The gray one was clove flavored and, understandably, did not make a modern cut. Conversation candies, ditto. Horehound candy, peppermint sticks, jelly beans, licorice, etc, were the kinds of candies most widely available. —civilwarcandies dot com

Starting in the 1860s, the Ganja Wallah Hasheesh Candy Company made maple sugar hashish candy, which soon became one of the most popular treats in America. For 40 years, it was sold over the counter and advertised in newspapers, as well as being listed in the catalogs of Sears-Roebuck, as a totally harmless, delicious, and fun candy—thomhartman dot com

According to one website, Generals Grant and Lee reportedly agreed that hasheesh candy was a fine choice for their soldiers and provided it when they had it. —civilwarrxblogspot dot com.

IMO this would have been early in the war for the Confederates because they were broke and starving after the first year or so. Still, it makes me feel better about the conditions the soldiers lived in if they had a little happy candy to ease their discomfort and pain. Though I'm not sure what it did for their shooting aim.

Chocolate (or cocoa rather) had been discovered but was only served as a beverage, and only in Europe, for literally thousands of years. Chocolate bars were not created until 1876 and cocoa powder was not added to cakes until the 1880s according to various sources. GWTW stories set in this time that have chocolate cakes and chocolate candy in them raise my eyebrows and make me go 'hmm'. Though I'm sure I do things that make readers and writers react the same way. We all pick our battles with artistic liberties, and it's supposed to be fun! I have to remind myself of that sometimes.

The bonbons Rhett brings Aunt Pitty are a mixture of hard and soft fruity candy from what I can tell and there's a company that makes them still in Nassau, which is where I always imagine him buying them. They weren't chocolate bonbons, at any rate.

This has been a highly roundabout way to tell you why the Butler Family & Co. don't miss chocolate in this story. Although I do wonder if Rhett ever had some of that hasheesh candy, and what Rhett would be like if he had partaken. Scarlett might have been interesting if exposed, as well. It appears that the way it was manufactured may have produced an overly strong and addicting candy, and I am not promoting the use of narcotics here. Just curious. Ahem.

As a side note, I will add that I may be a Southerner but I don't like molasses in any form and only tolerate the little bit that's in brown sugar. Molasses and sorghum are two different things, and sorghum molasses is sorghum, not molasses. They all taste nasty to me. I can't imagine candy made from them would be any better.

Happy Easter if you celebrate! Chapter 16 may be a little longer in the making as I genuinely want to work on *other creative outlets that shall not be named * right now. Also, I need to put down all that mulch I trashed my knee over last month. And learn how to use a pole saw to cut down all the scrub and nonsense crowding my mountain laurels. Y'all pray for me on that one.

Thank you so much for all the reviews and support; and, if it's not too much to ask, please leave me a few words on this chapter if you have a minute, they are my motivation! There are so few GWTW fics going on right now that all the authors, of present stories and past, need the encouragement of our beloved readers.

Will let you know when Chapter 16 gets closer to posting. Peace and love as always, misscyn