The text in bold is from GWTW in case the copyright police come after me. I can't believe there's only one chapter to go after this - thanks to everyone who came along for the ride. It's been lovely to walk around in this world one more time.

Rhett picked up the decanter and poured himself another drink. This would be the one.

The one that would make him forget.

Tilting back his head, he drained the alcohol in one swift, well-practiced motion. He held himself rigid afterwards, praying silently that it had finally done its job.

Then he heard it. The sound that had haunted him for the last twenty-four hours. That damn, soul-destroying sigh.

Every time he closed his eyes, there it was again, ambushing him. No matter how much alcohol he consumed - and Lord knew he'd done his best to drain this fair city dry - he could not escape it. It seemed that no amount of amber liquid was capable of drowning it out.

He couldn't stop seeing her, either.

Even though Scarlett had turned her cheating face away from him last night, had moved out of his embrace to face the window and dream of her beloved, Rhett could still picture her expression. It would be the same one she had worn the day he'd proposed. Just before he'd pressured her into saying yes, her mind had wandered off to fantasise about her wooden-headed, would-be beau. God, she had been beautiful in that moment. Her face softer than he had ever seen, her glorious eyes wide and misty and wearing a look that he'd gladly have given away all his gold to have inspired.

But of course, he had not. There had only ever been one man capable of eliciting Scarlett's devotion and it certainly wasn't him. He had tried so very hard all honeymoon to wear down her resistance, to offer her a love that Mr. Wilkes was incapable of providing - but it was not to be.

Everything they had shared in these last two weeks, every single, blissful moment that had meant so much to him was now tainted by the suspicion that she had been secretly wishing he was Ashley all along. The thought sickened him. It made him want to howl into the void, drink himself into oblivion, board the next train back to Atlanta and shoot that godforsaken man where he stood. It made him want to wake his wife from where she was sleeping peacefully in the room next door and hurl mindless, cruel insults at her until she was filled with the same aching blackness that had taken up residence in his soul.

Sliding a hand wearily down his face, Rhett winced as he recalled the things he had said to her that morning. He had been extremely harsh, even by his own low standards, effectively declaring their marriage to be over and enquiring as to when she was leaving.

He had all but handed her the stick with which to beat him and yet had been taken aback - quite literally - when she had gone along with his masquerade and talked of selling off her wedding rings to pay for her train fare. He still flinched to remember the cold hatred in her eyes as she'd bitten into him with words designed to wound. And boy how they had, hitting their target with such precision that he had almost been forced to hold up his hands and surrender.

Almost.

Instead, he'd snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, pooling together the last of his strength to deliver a fatal blow. Although, if ever a victory had tasted more like defeat he sure as hell could not recall it. To win by calling one's own wife a whore was as low as it got. Lower than he had ever dared to stoop before and the mere memory of it left an ugly taste in his mouth.

He had yearned to take it back the moment he had seen the flash of pain pass across her face, but it was already too late. Following in his footsteps from the night before, Scarlett had fled the room while he called out pitifully for her to come back. His plan to chase after her had been thwarted when he'd collided with the chest of drawers, causing him to collapse in a pitiful heap upon the carpet.

He had lain there for well over an hour, as helpless and pathetic as an overturned turtle, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if Scarlett would ever return. Finally, hurt and disgusted with both himself and her, he had managed to drag himself off the floor and shuffle out of the room, determined not to waste the day waiting for her. Instead, he'd made his way to the nearest saloon and whiled away the daylight hours by pouring yet more alcohol into his already spirit-soaked body.

He would doubtless have remained there forever had the concerned patron not informed him that it was fast-approaching supper time and he would do well to eat something. Thanking the man kindly, if not completely coherently, Rhett had slid off of his stool and weaved his way back to the hotel room, swaying from side to side as if battling against a fierce wind.

Reaching his suite, he had almost been too apprehensive to open the door, lest he should find that Scarlett had indeed packed up her bags and taken leave of him. He did not know what he would do without her. The last few years of his life had been entirely dedicated to making her his. He no longer knew what it meant to be Rhett Butler without Scarlett O'Hara.

He needn't have worried. He had barely opened the door before she was on him, her face a perfect scowl as she'd chastised him for making them late for dinner and complained that he smelt like he'd been dragged backwards through a brewery.

Those, as it turned out, were to be the only words she spoke to him all evening. She had somehow managed to remain silent during their ride to the restaurant and throughout the entirety of their meal in it. He had sat and stewed next to her, his mind once again reliving the events of the night before. His anger had threatened to boil over as he'd watched her greedily tuck into the crawfish course, thinking that the only reason she had agreed to marry him was so that she might enjoy such luxuries.

The return journey to the hotel had been equally tense, the two of them sitting next to each other in the carriage while looking in opposite directions. Upon re-entering their room, Scarlett had immediately shut herself up in the closet with a servant to change before hurrying across to the bed and enclosing herself under the duvet, screwing her eyes shut and feigning sleep from the moment her head had first touched the pillow.

Rhett, despite his exhaustion, had not deigned to follow her. He could hardly bear the thought of sharing a bed with her ever again, not when he now knew it would always contain three people instead of two.

Plagued by insecurity, he had dragged his weary bones into the living area. Collecting the decanter and an empty glass from the mantle-piece, he'd slumped down on a chair beside the breakfast table to continue his rapid descent into alcoholism in peace.

Three hours later and he was still there, the decanter almost empty, his head pounding savagely, and not one jot closer to the oblivion he craved. He needed sleep. His eyes were permanently half-shut. He considered sleeping on the couch in the living area, but it was too small for him to be able to lie out on comfortably. And why should he be the one to suffer a bad back when it was Scarlett's actions that had caused this rift?

Filled anew with righteous anger, Rhett stood up from his chair, gripping the edge of the table to prevent himself from falling. He made his way into the bedroom, determined that his wife's deceit should not prevent him from getting some much-needed rest.

Entering the room, he sat on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes and socks before taking off his jacket and waistcoat. Yanking his cravat away from his neck, he raised unsteady hands to his shirt and struggled laboriously for the next few minutes to undo all of the buttons. Giving up halfway through, he collapsed backwards onto the mattress, inching his way up the duvet until his head reached the pillow.

Staring up at the canopy above, Rhett held his body stiff, refusing to give into the urge to roll over and take his wife in his arms. It was just a force of habit. They had slept that way every night of their honeymoon and he had grown used to it. It was not as if he actually missed the warmth of her body or the feel of her head pressed against his heart.

Annoyed at his own traitorous thoughts, Rhett turned towards the edge of the bed and forced his eyes closed, resolving not to open them again until morning.

He was almost drifting off to sleep when a sound cut through the still night air and made his blood run cold.

A sigh.

At first, he thought it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. Then, as he strained his ears to listen, he heard another, slightly louder sigh escape from between his wife's lips.

She was dreaming of Ashley again. All the pain he had experienced today clearly meant nothing to her if she was content to lie beside him and fantasise about another man so soon after their row. He clenched his fists, fighting hard against the urge to turn round and throttle his unfaithful spouse where she slept.

He wondered if such an action would finally push the esteemed gentleman out of her head. If, at the moment before her vision failed and her breath gave out, she would look up into Rhett's face and realise what a fool she had been all these years. He doubted it. Scarlett O'Hara was nothing if not stubborn. It had always been one of his favourite things about her, but now the great joke of old had grown painfully unfunny.

The only thing that still entertained him about the whole, sorry situation was the fact that the man at the centre of it was so damn unworthy of all the strife he was causing. A pompous, depressingly-earnest prig of a fellow, Ashley Wilkes would never be able to provide Scarlett with one moment of true joy. Why, she'd burn through him faster than pitch through dried kindling - if he didn't bore her to death first.

In all his travels, Rhett had never come across two people less suited. They were as different as he and Scarlett were alike, and yet Ashley was the one she wanted. Or rather, the idea of him. For Ashley was exactly the sort of upper-class gentlemen that all good Southern girls were taught to strive for and the sort of man that Rhett's own father had wanted him to become. But while he had resisted such teachings, Scarlett had succumbed. It was one of the few differences between them, but it was a crucial one. It was ironic, really, given that she had ignored virtually every other rule imposed upon her by society, that the one she chose to follow was the one capable of tearing them apart.

Trapped by dark thoughts, Rhett almost didn't notice when Scarlett emitted another sound, this one closer to a cry. Rhett wondered if her dream had turned sour. Perhaps Melanie had returned to break up Scarlett and Ashley's tryst and remind his wife who her beloved really belonged to.

Rhett's wry thoughts soon turned to worry when Scarlett let out a sharp scream and kicked her legs under the covers. Rolling over, he studied her face through the gloom. It was screwed up in terror, fat tears rolling silently down Scarlett's magnolia cheeks.

This must be the old nightmare she told me about, he mused. For a moment he seriously considered turning back over and leaving her to her misery, letting her suffer as he had so often been made to do at her hands. For years now she had remained ignorant of his pain, so why should he act to ease hers?

But when her eyelids fluttered open to reveal wide, hysterical eyes, he knew he could not simply lie back and shut out her sorrow. Even if she could never love him, he would not stop loving her. She was everything to him, though she'd never know it.

Wordlessly, he gathered her up and held her close, rubbing her back as he gently shushed her. She cried for some minutes, sobbing pitifully against his chest with an air of defeat that was most unlike his normally wilful wife. Feeling a little more of his bitterness melt away with each passing second, Rhett held her tighter and planted a kiss on her forehead.

'Oh, Rhett, I was so cold and so hungry and so tired and I couldn't find it. I ran through the mist and I ran but I couldn't find it.'

'Find what, honey?' he asked, filled suddenly with an overriding need to protect her as she clung to him and rambled mindlessly on about her dream.

'I don't know. I wish I did know.'

Rhett almost laughed at that, for he too wished that Scarlett would finally realise what it was she was looking for. Of course, Rhett wished he was the one she so desperately sought in these night-time terrors, but even if he wasn't, at least her self-discovery would bring about an end to the unbearable uncertainty that existed between them. An uncertainty which made him hope that maybe Scarlett did in fact love him, but was simply too blind to her own needs to realise it.

Reluctantly, he loosened his embrace and lowered her back down onto the bed. If he held onto her any longer, he would never find the strength to let go. He lit a candle, finding comfort in the way the orange flame bathed the dark room in light. Exhausted as he was, Rhett resolved to remain awake for the rest of the night to ensure that it did not go out. If Scarlett's nightmare returned, he wanted to spare her the terror of waking up in a pitch-black room.

Looking at her now, he was struck by how young she looked. Sitting up in the centre of the bed with her hair tumbling down either side of her frightened face, she reminded him of a doe caught up unexpectedly in a snare, her entire body trembling with ill-concealed fear.

He ached to touch her, to bring her to his chest and comfort her in the only way he knew how, but he could not. Not when she would only close up her eyes and start imagining it was another pair of arms that were wrapped around her.

Unable to watch her any longer, he turned his face back towards the ceiling.

'Hold me, Rhett,' she whispered, her words so perfect that he must have dreamed them.

A shudder of affection rushed through Rhett as the love he had suppressed for far too long threatened to burst out of his chest. Even sweeter than her desire for his touch was the fact that she had said his name.

Not Ashley's.

His.

For the first time since he'd heard that damned sigh, Rhett was assured that he was the one that Scarlett wanted, the one she sought comfort from when times grew tough.

'Darling!' he cried, lifting her from the bed and into a nearby chair so that he might better cradle her against his chest.

He barely listened to her talk about her nightmare, too caught up in the sensation of holding her against him, and of knowing that he was needed.

After the events of the previous night, this was the soothing balm that his aching heart craved. Filled with a leaping, restless joy, he tried to ease Scarlett's fears, being unusually open when he spoke of his intention to always keep her safe.

'Rhett, you are so nice,' she replied, a dull ache reverberating through him at her tepid words. It was hardly the declaration of undying love that he longed to prize from her lips, but at least it was a start. He should count himself lucky - only a few hours ago she had been threatening to leave him.

'Thanks for the crumbs from your table, Mrs. Dives,' he said smoothly. Knowing that her earlier terror would soon disappear if he brought money into the conversation, Rhett continued on, 'Scarlett, I want you to say to yourself every morning when you wake up: "I can't ever be hungry again and nothing can ever touch me as long as Rhett is here and the United States government holds out".'

Sure enough, his words soon dried any remaining tears. Scarlett sat bolt upright in his arms as curiosity replaced her fear. He failed to hold back a smile as his headstrong wife started demanding that he remove his money from the Yankees' pockets and use it to buy up half of Atlanta instead.

But, while their ensuing talk of the horrendously ostentatious house they were to build once they returned home entertained him no end, Rhett felt that the turn in conversation had caused a vital opportunity to be lost. Rhett had hoped that Scarlett's reaction to her nightmare might act as a catalyst, speeding up the revelation that she needed him in her life.

But, as always, the chance had slipped away. She had taken what she needed from him and now she was as confident and out of reach as ever. He listened to her prattling on about hosting grand soirees in their as-of-yet unbuilt house, completely oblivious to the fact that not one respectable citizen would be seen dead in their company.

Trying to recapture her earlier show of affection he appealed to her mercenary mind, laying his check-book at her mercy in the vain hope that it would buy him her heart

'You can have all the cash you want for the house and all you want for your fal-lals,' he heard himself say, hating the idea that their relationship was built solely upon her greed and his desperation and yet unable to think of another way to keep her. And, by God, did he want to keep her. 'And anything you want for Wade or Ella. And if Will Benteen can't make a go of the cotton, I'm willing to chip in and help out that white elephant in Clayton County that you love so much. That's fair enough, isn't it?'

'Of course, you're very generous,' she rushed to reassure him, her slim words of praise making Rhett happier than they had any right to. Sometimes he felt himself to be little more than a beggar who, not offered anything better, is content to wolf down scraps and convince himself that he has just received the most splendid of feasts.

Something about her tone alerted Rhett's suspicions. It was slightly too sweet for Scarlett and he thought he had a fairly good idea on what – or rather whom - she planned to spend all of his hard-earned gains.

'But listen closely,' he warned, getting ahead of her. 'Not one cent for the store and not one cent for that kindling factory of yours.'

Her face fell, causing Rhett's mood to take a similar nose-dive. Her poor reaction confirmed that her thoughts had once again turned to Ashley. It seemed that no matter how far they'd come in these last two weeks, they were still unable to shake off the spectre of that man.

'Why?' Scarlett asked, wilfully ignorant as ever.

Suddenly sick of the endless game of cat and mouse, Rhett decided to abandon his habitual vagueness and spell out his motivations loud and clear. 'Because I don't care to contribute to the support of Ashley Wilkes.'

Scarlett stiffened in his arms, pulling away from his chest. Her earlier anger resurfacing, she enquired sourly, 'Are you going to begin that again?'

Restarting their earlier argument was the last thing on Rhett's mind. He wished only to put the whole sorry subject to bed once and for all. 'No,' he stated firmly, 'But you asked my reasons and I have given them. I'm riding you with a slack rein, my pet, but don't forget that I'm riding you with curb and spurs just the same.'

While he had meant to bring about an end to their fight, his words only served to reignite the flames. Scarlett's entire face morphed into a scowl, her thick brows rushing together as her eyes turned stormy. 'I'm not some horse that you can break in, Rhett! If you expect me to turn into some obedient pet now that we're married, you have another thing coming!'

While his temper instinctively rose to meet hers, Rhett would be lying if he said he didn't understand the cause of her ire. His hasty words were a poor assessment of their marital set-up. Indeed, if he could be said to be riding her at all, it was only by clinging stubbornly onto her mane as they hurtled together towards a precipice that he could not see, but felt instinctively was waiting someway in the distance to tear them asunder.

Though he regretted his statement, he could not retract it without losing face. So, like any seasoned gambler worth his salt, Rhett doubled down. 'There is no need for you to change now that we are man and wife, my dear,' he drawled. 'I already broke you in years ago. I started the day we first met and I completed the task when I convinced you to wear that green bonnet you love so much.'

Clambering out of his arms, Scarlett turned to face him, her whole body shuddering with fury. 'You think you're so smart, don't you? You think you're damn-near the cleverest man God ever created and we're all just a bunch of stupid fools, too dim-witted to realise the games you're playing on us. Well, guess what, Rhett Butler? You don't know half as much as you think you do. You don't even know what's going on under your own nose.'

'Is that so?' he asked darkly, as her words cut dangerously close to the bone.

'It is!' she cried, too caught up in her tirade to sense the change in him. 'You ran off last night like the mealy-mouthed coward you are, so convinced that you knew what I was thinking about. Well, you couldn't have been more wrong if you'd tried!'

Leaping from his chair, he grabbed her wrist and snarled, 'Oh, I knew what you were thinking about, Scarlett! Lying in my arms and dreaming I was Ashley Wilkes. If you want to call me a coward for leaving, go right ahead. But I'm sure I could think up a worse name for you in return, my pet.'

Snatching her arm out of his hold, she screamed, 'You're pathetic! If you stopped being a jealous fool for just one minute then you'd realise I wasn't wishing you were Ashley, but that Ashley was you!'

Time stood still. The pounding in his head, the exhaustion he felt, even Scarlett's flustered face, it all faded away until the only thing he could see before him was darkness. And, in the midst of that darkness, a small, almost imperceptible flicker of light. A flicker which slowly grew into a flame. The very flame that he had been waiting to see ignited in a certain, well-loved pair of emerald eyes.

Coming back to himself as if awakening from a dream, Rhett thought he'd made a mistake. Surely his ears had deceived him, making him hear the words he longed for Scarlett to speak. He needed to know for sure.

Refusing to let the moment slip from his fingers as so many had before, Rhett reached out and pulled Scarlett to him, wrapping his arms around her waist as he pressed her against his body and leant down to bury his face in her neck.

'What did you say?' he asked urgently, keeping his face concealed. He did not want her to read the bitter disappointment in his eyes if her next words were not the ones he so desperately needed to hear.

He felt her stiffen in his arms, no doubt confused by his sudden show of affection in the midst of their passionate row. 'You heard what I said, Rhett. Lord knows I yelled it loud enough, so don't think you can trick me into repeating it.'

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Rhett found himself chuckling at his wife's words - even in potentially life-changing moments, she was as obstinate as ever. Realising he needed to change tactics, Rhett placed a gentle kiss upon her neck before pulling back and resting his forehead against hers.

Looking into Scarlett's eyes, he whispered in his softest and most tantalising of voices, 'Please.'

Her eyes widening, she replied in a dazed murmur, the words pouring out of her as if he had willed them into existence, 'I was thinking about how nice it feels when you hold me close at night, when you take my hand in yours and whisper silly, sweet things in my ear until I fall asleep. I don't think Ashley would ever do that for me.'

'You don't?' he breathed, his lips so close to hers that she must have felt his words more clearly than she heard them.

'No. If I'm being truthful, Rhett, I think there are an awful lot of things that you do that Ashley wouldn't.'

'Such as?' he prompted, his eyes boring into hers. He had to force himself not to pick her up in his arms and swing her wildly round the room, shouting out his joy as they went. Her words were too good to be true. After all these years of blind devotion could she really have begun to see the light?

And yet, he thought hopefully, these last two weeks in New Orleans had seen their relationship change beyond even his wildest, most fervent of dreams. Slowly she had begun to let down her defences, to lay with him willingly and even eagerly at night, to laugh wholeheartedly at his stories, to tease and play, to accept his friends and take up her rightful place at his side.

All this time he had thought her blind to her own feelings, but perhaps she had already uncovered them and he was the one who'd been too caught up in old resentments to see it.

So deep in thought was he, that Rhett almost missed how Scarlet blushed red at his question, averting her eyes as her cheeks coloured. 'Oh, I don't know, Rhett,' she answered sharply, covering over her embarrassment with a show of irritation that once would have fooled him. But not anymore. 'There are too many to count!'

'Scarlett, honey, look at me,' he commanded gently, needing to see one final thing before he could allow himself to believe that her declaration was real.

He held his breath as she raised her face towards his, praying hard to a God he wished he believed in that he would finally find it. Her eyes met his and, searching past her emerald irises, Rhett scoured the depths of her bottomless, black pupils before seeing the very thing that he had always sought: a flame.

After all this time and all this suffering, it was finally there, burning brightly in the dark like a full moon in a cloudless night's sky.

He fused his lips to hers, kissing Scarlett with a tenderness and a completeness that he'd always been too afraid to share with her. Sliding his hands up into her cascading hair, Rhett pulled her impossibly closer before breaking away.

He smiled brightly at Scarlett's flustered expression, before whispering huskily, 'Why don't I help you count them?'

Seeing her look of dazed confusion, he chuckled lightly, thrilled to find he was capable of rendering even the great Scarlett O'Hara speechless with his kisses.

'For instance,' he murmured lowly, stroking down the length of her bare arm, from shoulder to wrist, 'would Ashley's touch bring goosebumps to your skin like mine does?'

Scarlett shivered lightly under the heat of his gaze before mutely shaking her head.

'I didn't think so,' Rhett said, leaning in to nudge her nose with his. 'Would Ashley's proximity make your breath catch in your throat like it does when I'm close to you?'

Scarlett swallowed thickly. 'No.'

Raising a hand to her cheek, Rhett ran his fingertips down her heated skin before drawing her in for a kiss. Closing his eyes, he traced across her bottom lip with his tongue, allowing himself to become lost in the feel and taste of her.

'Would Ashley's kisses leave you light-headed and feverish like mine do?'

'No,' she said through swollen lips, her eyes clouding over with unfulfilled desire.

Rhett felt himself stiffen as he took her in. As much as he was enjoying this game, it was time to bring it to an end.

Wrapping his arms around Scarlett's waist, he walked her back towards the bed, never once breaking eye contact. As the back of her knees hit against the mattress and threatened to give out, Rhett swept her up into his arms and lowered her onto the centre of the bed. He stared down at her, his throat drier than the Californian desert at midday, and thought about all the ways he was going to make her his. Years and years of sleepless, panting nights stretched out ahead of them now. They had so much time, and yet he knew it would never be enough to quench his thirst.

Crawling up over Scarlett, he leant down and kissed her softly. Placing his palm flat on her chest, he ran it down between the valley of her breasts and over the flat plane of her stomach, loving the way she trembled under his touch.

'Would Ashley make you ache like I do?' he asked, pressing his fingers gently against her.

'Would he make your hips arch? Your thighs spread? Your skin grow slick?'

'Ah...'

'Answer me,' he pressed, his fingertips bearing down.

Rather than reply, Scarlett moaned and grabbed at him, pulling Rhett into a desperate kiss.

Submerging himself in her warmth, Rhett knew that he wouldn't need to ask any more questions tonight. She had already given him all the answers he would ever need.

Her eyes falling shut, Scarlett sighed once more into the night.

'Rhett.'

And in that moment, the confirmed rascal and eternal reprobate knew what it was to walk through Heaven's Gate and taste eternity on his tongue.