Authors Note- very much inspired by recent conversations about Melanie as portrayed in fanfiction in a fanfic group - hello lovely ladies! - I feel like I'm decent at understanding Melanie, so here's a little tidbit. It begins with a short excerpt from the book to lead into the scene. It is set after Scarlett's fall down the stairs and subsequent miscarriage. I apologize for any mistakes, I wrote most of it on my phone, and I'm far more prone to typos when autocorrect is "helping" me. Enjoy, let me know your thoughts. - MM's original words are in italics. LOL, and yes, I know that there is no way that this could have happened in the time period, but I needed Melanie to use her voice earlier rather than later.

Death and fear receded gently as Melanie took her hand and laid it quietly against her cool cheek. Scarlett tried to turn to see her face and could not. Melly was having a baby and the Yankees were coming. The town was afire and she must hurry, hurry. But Melly was having a baby and she couldn't hurry. She must stay with her till the baby came and be strong because Melly needed her strength. Melly was hurting so bad—there were hot pinchers at her and dull knives and recurrent waves of pain. She must hold Melly's hand.

But Dr. Meade was there after all, he had come, even if the soldiers at the depot did need him for she heard him say: "Delirious. Where's Captain Butler?"

The night was dark and then light and sometimes she was having a baby and sometimes it was Melanie who cried out, but through it all Melly was there and her hands were cool and she did not make futile anxious gestures or sob like Aunt Pitty. Whenever Scarlett opened her eyes, she said "Melly?" and the voice answered. And usually she started to whisper: "Rhett—I want Rhett" and remembered, as from a dream, that Rhett didn't want her, that Rhett's face was dark as an Indian's and his teeth were white in a jeer. She wanted him and he didn't want her.

Once she said "Melly?" and Mammy's voice said: "S'me, chile," and put a cold rag on her forehead and she cried fretfully: "Melly— Melanie" over and over but for a long time Melanie did not come. For Melanie was sitting on the edge of Rhett's bed and Rhett, drunk and sobbing, was sprawled on the floor, crying, his head in her lap.

Every time she had come out of Scarlett's room she had seen him, sitting on his bed, his door wide, watching the door across the hall. The room was untidy, littered with cigar butts and dishes of untouched food. The bed was tumbled and unmade and he sat on it, unshaven and suddenly gaunt, endlessly smoking. He never asked questions when he saw her. She always stood in the doorway for a minute, giving the news: "I'm sorry, she's worse," or "No, she hasn't asked for you yet. You see, she's delirious" or "You mustn't give up hope, Captain Butler. Let me fix you some hot coffee and something to eat. You'll make yourself ill."

Her heart always ached with pity for him, although she was almost too tired and sleepy to feel anything. How could people say such mean things about him—say he was heartless and wicked and unfaithful to Scarlett, when she could see him getting thin before her eyes, see the torment in his face? Tired as she was, she always tried to be kinder than usual when she gave bulletins from the sick room. He looked so like a damned soul waiting judgment— so like a child in a suddenly hostile world. But everyone was like a child to Melanie.

But when, at last, she went joyfully to his door to tell him that Scarlett was better, she was unprepared for what she found. There was a half-empty bottle of whisky on the table by the bed and the room reeked with the odor. He looked at her with bright glazed eyes and his jaw muscles trembled despite his efforts to set his teeth.

"She's dead?"

"Oh, no. She's much better."

He said: "Oh, my God," and put his head in his hands. She saw his wide shoulders shake as with a nervous chill and, as she watched him pityingly, her pity changed to horror for she saw that he was crying. Melanie had never seen a man cry and of all men, Rhett, so suave, so mocking, so eternally sure of himself.

It frightened her, the desperate choking sound he made. She had a terrified thought that he was drunk and Melanie was afraid of drunkenness. But when he raised his head and she caught one glimpse of his eyes, she stepped swiftly into the room, closed the door softly behind her and went to him. She had never seen a man cry but she had comforted the tears of many children. When she put a soft hand on his shoulder, his arms went suddenly around her skirts. Before she knew how it happened she was sitting on the bed and he was on the floor, his head in her lap and his arms and hands clutching her in a frantic clasp that hurt her.

She stroked the black head gently and said: "There! There!" soothingly. "There! She's going to get well."

At her words, his grip tightened and he began speaking rapidly, hoarsely, babbling as though to a grave which would never give up its secrets, babbling the truth for the first time in his life, baring himself mercilessly to Melanie who was at first, utterly uncomprehending, utterly maternal. He talked brokenly, burrowing his head in her lap, tugging at the folds of her skirt. Sometimes his words were blurred, muffled, sometimes they came far too clearly to her ears, harsh, bitter words of confession and abasement, speaking of things she had never heard even a woman mention, secret things that brought the hot blood of modesty to her cheeks and made her grateful for his bowed head.

She patted his head as she did little Beau's and said: "Hush! Captain Butler! You must not tell me these things! You are not yourself. Hush!" But his voice went on in a wild torrent of outpouring and he held to her dress as though it were his hope of life.

"I love her, God, I love her so much, so much it frightens me. So much that I'm afraid to let her know and let her see how much I love her. She'd only use it as a weapon, and I can't allow myself to be like all of those other foolish men that allow her to manipulate them. But she almost died. I've nearly killed her just to pretend that I was nonchalant about seeing her again…" He accused himself of deeds she did not understand; he mumbled the name of Belle Watling and then he shook her with his violence as he cried: "I've killed Scarlett, I've killed her. You don't understand. She didn't want this baby and—"

"You must hush! You are beside yourself! Not want a baby? Why every woman wants—"

"No! No! You want babies. But she doesn't. Not my babies—"

"You must stop!"

"You don't understand. She didn't want a baby and I made her. This—this baby—it's all my damned fault. We hadn't been sleeping together—"

"Hush, Captain Butler! It is not fit—"

"And I was drunk and insane and I wanted to hurt her—because she had hurt me. I wanted to—and I did—but she didn't want me. She's never wanted me. She never has and I tried—I tried so hard and—"

"Oh, please!"

"And I didn't know about this baby till the other day—when she fell. She didn't know where I was to write to me and tell me—but she wouldn't have written me if she had known. I tell you—I tell you I'd have come straight home—if I'd only known—whether she wanted me home or not..."

"Oh, yes, I know you would! But she did want you, did want to write you. I've spent so much time with her since you left, you just are grief stricken."

"God, I've been crazy these weeks, crazy and drunk! And when she told me, there on the steps—what did I do? What did I say? I laughed and said: 'Cheer up. Maybe you'll have a miscarriage.' And she—"

Melanie suddenly went white and her eyes widened with horror as she looked down at the black tormented head writhing in her lap. The afternoon sun streamed in through the open window and suddenly she saw, as for the first time, how large and brown and strong his hands were and how thickly the black hairs grew along the backs of them. Involuntarily, she recoiled from them. They seemed so predatory, so ruthless and yet, twined in her skirt, so broken, so helpless.

Could it be possible that he had heard and believed the preposterous lie about Scarlett and Ashley and become jealous? True, he had left town immediately after the scandal broke but— No, it couldn't be that. Captain Butler was always going off abruptly on journeys. He couldn't have believed the gossip. He was too sensible. If that had been the cause of the trouble, wouldn't he have tried to shoot Ashley? Or at least demanded an explanation?

No, it couldn't be that. It was only that he was drunk and sick from strain and his mind was running wild, like a man delirious, babbling wild fantasies. Men couldn't stand strains as well as women. Something had upset him, perhaps he had had a small quarrel with Scarlett and magnified it. Perhaps some of the awful things he said were true. But all of them could not be true. Oh, not that last, certainly! No man could say such a thing to a woman he loved as passionately as this man loved Scarlett. Melanie had never seen evil, never seen cruelty, and now that she looked on them for the first time she found them too inconceivable to believe. He was drunk and sick. And sick children must be humored.

"There! There!" she said crooningly. "Hush, now. I understand."

He raised his head violently and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes, fiercely throwing off her hands.

"No, by God, you don't understand! You can't understand! You're— you're too good to understand. You don't believe me but it's all true and I'm a dog. Do you know why I did it? I was mad, crazy with jealousy. She never cared for me and I thought I could make her care. But she never cared. She doesn't love me. She never has. She loves—"

His passionate, drunken gaze met hers and he stopped, mouth open, as though for the first time he realized to whom he was speaking. Her face was white and strained but her eyes were steady and sweet and full of pity and unbelief. There was a luminous serenity in them and the innocence in the soft brown depths struck him like a blow in the face, clearing some of the alcohol out of his brain, halting his mad, careering words in mid-flight. He trailed off into a mumble, his eyes dropping away from hers, his lids batting rapidly as he fought back to sanity.

"I'm a cad," he muttered, dropping his head tiredly back into her lap. "But not that big a cad. And if I did tell you, you wouldn't believe me, would you? You're too good to believe me. I never before knew anybody who was really good. You wouldn't believe me, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't believe you," said Melanie soothingly, beginning to stroke his hair again. "She's going to get well. There, Captain Butler! Don't cry! She's going to get well." But then something within her snapped, and she decided to do something, possibly something she would regret, but no one else would tell them. Clearly no one else had a clear enough mind and cared enough to meddle, and for goodness sake, someone needed to meddle in this marriage. " Captain Butler, I need you to dry your eyes and pay attention to me." Rhett's face rose and stared blearily at her command. "You and Scarlett are as good as family to me, and I've watched you dance around the issues long enough. I don't understand, you've always been so kind and respectful to me, but you don't treat the woman that you love with such deference, and I think that is part of your problem. I love Scarlett dearly as my own sister, but for all of her intelligence and business smarts, she can be rather oblivious to emotions and what others feel. There are many times it has served her well, but as much as you both love each other, I don't know that she realizes how much you love her."

At this, Rhett began to protest, but Melanie cut him off. "No, I must speak my piece before I lose my gumption. You need to go to her, now that she's turned the corner and go sit with her and tell her to her face that you love her. You've told me things that you said to each other which make absolutely no sense for two people as in love as you are."

"You don't understand," he muttered. "She doesn't love me. She's never loved me, it was always someone else."

"You're a fool to not see that she loves you and has loved you since early in the war." At this Melanie stopped, and her hand trembled as she covered her mouth, blushing profusely. "I'm so sorry, I've said too much," and she began to rise, disentangling herself from his grasp.

Rhett snorted. "But she doesn't love me. She doesn't."

"Did you never notice how her face lights up the moment you come into the room," Melanie argued. "I mean, of course you didn't see how she'd fuss and complain about whatever you'd done to start an argument and swear she was never speaking to you again, but it was never long before she started missing you and then you'd come to make amends with little trinkets and the cycle would start all over again. You're both very childish sometimes, though you're the worst – the little boy on the playground that only shows his interest by pulling braids and stealing hair ribbons. But you're not children out to play any longer, you are husband and wife, who love each other dearly. You must treat her kindly, and you'll be amazed at the difference in her response to you." Melanie spoke softly, blushing deeply, but there was a steely gaze to her eyes as she spoke these words. "And I know that I've said things that I had no place in saying, but there is no one else close enough to say them to you, without your mother knowing Scarlett and with Mrs. O'Hara being gone." She straightened her shoulders, " I don't want either of you to spend years regretting the choices you have made. You would have struggled greatly with regrets if I'd come in tonight with a different update on Scarlett's condition." Melanie smiled wanly, "I'm being too blunt, and I hate to be so bold…. But stop wasting time, and be honest with her. She needs your strength now, for she is still so very weak. And I've never known you to turn Scarlett away when she needs you, and she might need you now more than ever."

Rhett rose, his muscles and joints protesting from his lack of movement over the previous days as he moved to the basin in the corner and began splashing water in his face. The coolness bringing more clarity to Melanie's admonition. "Thank you, Miss Melly. I will try to take your advice to heart."

"I'll have a tray sent up. You need to eat a good meal and freshen up. Scarlett is resting and I doubt that she will know the difference in the time it takes to make you presentable, but I think you need to be prepared." She hesitated briefly, offering a nervous smile, "I hope that I was right to be so forward. I only want the best for the both of you."

Rhett nodded gravely, "Thank you. No one will ever know of this conversation. I will take the secret of it to my grave."

With that Melanie departed the Butler's home after asking for a treat to be sent to Captain Butler. And Rhett took his time bathing and changing clothes before he consumed the contents of the tray. He felt heartened by his freshening up and a little like he was heading into battle, possibly the greatest battle of his life.

He shut the door to his bedroom, freshly dressed and clean shaven and smelling of aftershave and soap, unlike the stench of body odor that had clung to him for days as he sat waiting in a paralyzing fear for someone to tell him that Scarlett had succumbed to her injuries. He looked up to see Mammy exiting Scarlett's bedroom. "How is she Mammy," he questioned.

"She's been restless, but she's doing better, Mister Rhett. I just feed her some broth, but she needs her rest."

"I'm going to sit with her for a bit. Mrs. Wilkes told me that she was doing better." Rhett countered hopefully.

"She is," Mammy turned towards him, a distrustful gleam in her eyes. " but you best not go in there and upset her. She's weak as a kitten, but I've seen some kittens spitting mad before, and you sure know how to rile her up."

"I'll be on my best behavior, Mammy." He flashed her a grin, "I swear it."

She harrumphed at him but nodded, " You best be, mister Rhett. She was mighty happy to see you and Miss Bonnie return, and mighty happy about that baby. I've never seen her like she was, humming and glowing. Even with Miss Bonnie she wasn't excited like some ladies be. I think she set a store by this one. And she knows she lost the baby, and she took it best she could, but she's hurting, and it's more than just those bruises and bumps. She'll beat what she has to bear, but it don't make the bearing any easier"

"I understand, Mammy. I just want to see her. If she wants more babies, she can have more babies."

"I think she wanted this one, and a new baby don't replace another." Mammy glared at him, but turned and headed down the stairs, leaving him standing in the hallway in front of her bedroom door. He opened the door softly, half in fear of waking his ill and injured wife and half in fear that she was awake and waiting to pounce on him.

He found that she was asleep, but tossing and turning, murmuring plaintively in her sleep. He pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and set himself in it. He couldn't make out any words, and she wasn't in a true panic, though he would intervene shortly if her tossing increased. He wished to observe her for a moment while she was unaware. It had been nearly a week since their argument in the stairs when she'd fallen, but the bruises had not faded. Instead they were purple and yellow, a myriad of colors across her body, some even marring her face. It sickened him to see the evidence of her fall painted so starkly upon her magnolia skin.

He had to wonder at what Melanie had just said to him, after all, he knew she never would have dared to meddle like this, to be so bold if she wasn't utterly convinced of the veracity of her claims. Had his actions really made it next to impossible for her to realize that he loved her? He thought that he'd showed her his feelings well enough by building this monstrosity of a house and showering her with anything her heart desired. But if she really was blinded by his sarcasm, and truly he had intended to mask the truths he would only admit under duress, how could he blame her for not understanding and not recognizing it in herself? And it was awfully hard to lay blame on her in her current fragile condition. She had barely turned the corner from everyone fearing for her life.

Her murmuring grew louder, and he finally fumbled through the covers to find her hand, and picked it up, small, cold, and dry, in his own to still her. And she startled awake, her eyes wide with fear as she gasped for breath. "Hush, Scarlett. It was only a nightmare," he soothingly garbled.

She blinked at him in confusion, stunned to see him there, thinking it was a continuation of her nightmares, "Rhett?" She questioned in a thin voice that trembled with fatigue.

"Yes, my love." He returned softly.

She studied his face, "Why are you here? You don't want me." And though the words were harsh, they carried a great deal of self loathing instead of blame directed at him.

"I can leave, if you prefer," he offered.

She licked her dry lips, "no, please don't leave," she protested, leaning forward to stop his departure, but the movement caused white hot flames of pain to blaze through her body. She cried out, slumping against the pillows, closing her eyes as her vision tunneled.

Rhett was immediately on his feet, rushing to her aid. "Don't move, please don't try to get up. You've got broken ribs, and more injuries than I can count. You nearly died because of me, please don't injure yourself more."

She winced as she returned a breathy, "alright."

"Allow me be open with you, God knows I need to." He confessed. "Perhaps I should wait, but I've already put this off too long." He watched her face as he spoke, and there was the look of an animal about to be put down. The pain in her eyes was unmistakable, but he realized that it was both physical and emotional pain. "I've never been good at sharing my heart or allowing others to see who I really am. I've been a gambler so long that I've forgotten how to exist without my mask. For so long, the only way to protect myself was to hide everything I felt that might make me vulnerable. And this is a pretty big risk, but I think it's time to clear the air."

"No, Rhett."Scarlett pleaded. Tears slipped from watery, reddened eyes. "Please wait until I'm feeling better. I know you hate me. I know you hate me because…"

"Scarlett, why on earth would I hate you? I've been a boor, but surely you don't believe that I actually hate you." Rhett returned quickly, stunned at her admission.

She struggled to form the words, "because I killed our baby." Her breathing was far too rapid, and he could see the pain this was costing her. " I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, I wanted this baby. I was so excited, and now he's gone…"

"Scarlett, I don't hate you." He soothed. "You didn't mean to fall down the stairs. You're not that much of a masochist. I should have caught you, and I shouldn't have said the things I said." He watched her bright eyes, realizing that she was getting too worked up, and too much exertion would set back her recovery. He needed to fix this. "Scarlett, Love, this isn't the guillotine, nor the executioner's axe. I've come to confess that I love you. I've admitted it to you a few times, but then I tried to cover it up by doing something to incite your wrath. I'm a fool."

She lay there in stunned silence, watching him, studying his face, trying to make sense of it all. And as the reality of his works washed over her in waves, she began to weakly weep, tears slipping across her face and then falling into her hair. Rhett was at a loss. He'd laid his confession at her feet and she was openly weeping. Anger started to stir in his chest, at himself and at her for obvious distaste in what he had said. But she made such a pitiful creature, too weak to rise, and he worried that he was only going to end up undoing all of the progress she had made. Greater injury to her would not be in his head. He put aside his anger for the moment, and gently climbed onto the bed and held her, exceedly gently working around her injuries, for he could not stand her tears, any more than he could stand Bonnie's. "Hush, you can't get so worked up. Don't worry about what I said, you can't undo the progress you've made towards healing. You told me that you were merely fond of me when we wed, and that's fine. We just have to find a way to avoid such arguments."

"No," She struggled against him. "We've made such a mess of things, and our child died so senselessly." She stared at his face, so close to hers, "I didn't think you cared about me at all, but you say you love me?" She tried to steady her breaths, and finally stuttered out, "Rhett I lied to you, on the stairs, I did want this baby, and I was so glad to be carrying another child for you. But it doesn't matter now…"

Her brushed her face softly, swiping at the tear tracks, " Did you ever wonder why you were excited that we were going to have another child together?"

"No," She admitted softly. " You made me so angry when you asked who the father was. I was just thrilled to be having your child- a child from that mad night we spent together"

"Tell me truthfully, would you have been so excited if the child had been Ashely's?"

"No," She immediately replied, the color blanched from her already pale skin. "You do know I didn't actually cheat on you Rhett, don't you? I swear I wasn't unfaithful."

""Pray tell, my pet, exactly what happened that caused such an uproar if nothing happened in the way you are claiming."

Scarlett sighed, it was probably the best time to get this out into the open. "Melanie asked me to go to the mill to distract Ashley with bookwork. And he started talking about how it was before the war, about so many people that I miss so much, about a life I have to forget, because otherwise I'd be frozen in pain, the pain of missing them. But he made me remember, and I started crying, and he was comforting me. He held me as I cried, because he had made me cry. But there was nothing between us but friendship. He's just one of the only things I have left from those days. My other beaus almost all died, and they were my friends, and they're all gone."

He softly caressed her arm, barely skinning by the surface, for her body was an unknown landscape of bruising and injury, "shhh. It's alright. I believe you. I know how much you hate to look back." He watched her seriously as he prodded farther. "But considering that, have you ever wondered why you wanted to carry my child and not Ashley's?"

"Our child was made that night of passion. I've missed you so much." She admitted breathily, but her earlier hysteria seemed to be waning. "That night you told me that you loved me and I told you that I loved you. But I thought I was wrong, that I was imagining things." Despite the intensity of the conversation, even in his arms her strength was waning. "Rhett, have we both have loved each other all of these years? We've made such a mess of things…"

He started to respond, but then thought better of it. This was too taxing on her while she was still so early in recovery. So instead of responding, he leaned over and gently kissed her forehead. Then he softly added, " yes, Scarlett, I love you. I've loved you for years. And I think I might have acted so deplorably that you didn't realize what you felt for me, either. But you need to rest. Do you want me to sit with you, or should I call Mammy up?"

"Please stay," she whispered before closing her eyes. "Just hold me."

So he remained as he was carefully cradling her, thinking even more about the problems between them- wondering about how much honesty could change their future.