Dear readers, thank you so much for the kind words, support and inspiration you give me! I myself am wondering where the fate of our favourite characters will lead them and how many mistakes they will make...

A bit about Scarlett's memory and her loss below.

"Dissociative amnesia is the most common dissociative disorder. Most often occurs in people who have survived natural disasters, war. More common in women. It occurs more often in adolescence and young adulthood."

I guess our Scarlett lost her memory due to shock and distress. I think she saw her destroyed house, perhaps her mother's grave. We won't know what she saw until her memory returns to her, but we have her husband's story.

Enjoy reading!:)

Chapter 2.

The train had picked up speed and was now moving in a steady, monotonous rhythm. The passenger opposite pulled out a notebook, wrote down a few notes, frowned a little, then closed it and smiled at Rhett, who was holding a creased newspaper in front of his eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir, I never introduced myself to you. We're travelling together all the way to New York, and if you don't mind, we can talk..." the man said in a questioning tone.

Rhett's face was unreadable, years of poker had helped him with that, but inside he was trembling, burning, wanting to know how this man had ended up with the woman he'd loved and lost.

He smiled politely back, put the paper down and held out his hand to serve him, introducing himself, "My name is Rhett Butler, you can call me Captain Butler."

The man shook his hand firmly in return and said, "And I'm John Carter. Dr Carter. Forgive my curiosity, but your accent, sir... Are you from the South?"

Rhett nodded, noting to himself that the man was also from the South. "I'm from Charleston," he replied, and John said with a smile, "Oh, so we were neighbours, I was born and raised in Columbia."

Rhett looked at him with interest, trying to figure out how this Southerner had ended up in the North, and with her...

John smiled again and said, "Yes, we were lucky to meet. Especially in the North. I've been living here in Saratoga Springs with my wife and son for a year now," he explained, adding, "I was lucky enough to find a good job here after the war ended, I'm a doctor by profession, and this is a mineral springs town. It's a town where everyone wants to be healthy in body and mind, and no expense is spared. I'm glad I was able to move my family here, even though Scarlett has a hard time with the cold climate. Like me, though, we're still..."

"I'm sorry, your wife's name is Scarlett?" Rhett interrupted him sharply, not noticing his own reaction, and then, seeing his companion's surprised look, tried to smile and explained, "It's just a very interesting name, quite rare... Is she from the South too? What city?"

John was silent for a moment, gave his companion a sort of sad look, then looked out of the window, then back at Rhett and said earnestly, "Yes, my wife is from the South..."

Rhett was silent, not knowing what question to ask, lest he should show a strong interest, but John suddenly continued, looking thoughtfully at his hand with the gold wedding ring on it, "You see, Captain Butler, I could hardly answer you more precisely, even if I wanted to. The fact is, when I met my wife, when I met her and our son, she didn't remember anything. Nothing..." he sighed heavily, looked sadly into Rhett's eyes and said, "My wife lost her memory over a year ago."

Rhett looked at his interlocutor in shock, he would have liked to hide his emotions but his eyes, black and troubled, and the hands with which he began to adjust the collar of his shirt, gave away his excitement.

But John Carter was excited himself and did not notice the strange reaction of the man sitting opposite him. Rhett suddenly asked, "Are you going to tell me, Mr Carter?"

John looked at him questioningly and Rhett clarified, "About your wife... About how you met..."

John smiled weakly, then suddenly put his hands on the table and replied, "You know, Captain Butler, maybe I should tell you, share. You and I are occasional travelling companions, it is easier for such people to open their souls, to tell... After all, I've never told anyone this in detail before. There was another military doctor, but we were practically there together, he witnessed the whole thing. But no more than that. There was no one else I had to share it with. And sometimes it's hard on my heart, but I don't want to tell Scarlett. Especially not her. Oh... I suppose she was under a lot of stress and shock when I found her, otherwise I can't explain her amnesia. Maybe she saw someone close to her die, maybe she killed someone, I don't know... But her memory decided that if she remembered everything, she couldn't take it..."

"How did you find her?" asked Rhett in a hoarse voice, also leaning on the table.

John looked into Rhett's eyes, then turned to the window, gazed thoughtfully at the landscape, and began his story: "It was a very hot morning, the 2nd of September. For some reason the date sticks in my mind. There was a retreat of our forces, we heard from soldiers scattered in different directions that Atlanta had fallen. I don't know where you served in the war, Captain Butler, I suppose in the navy... I was a military doctor, treated everybody, even Yankee... We, doctors, aren't used to killing people, we're trained to save them. But I digress... Our army was retreating too, we had to get to the part of the railroad that was rumoured to still be in our control, and then take the train to Augusta. I and another doctor had four wagons full of wounded men, some who could walk, some who could not. You understand, the heat, which did not cease even at night, the corpses of horses and men were all around, a terrible view... I'm sorry to go into such details," John interrupted, looking at Rhett, but he nodded and the doctor went on, "I didn't know these lands, all we saw on the road, when we travelled, were burnt and looted estates. It was very hot, but we were lucky, and in the distance I noticed a strip of water between the trees. A small river where we could catch our breath. We stopped in the shade and I took a couple of basins to draw water for the wounded, and as I approached the river I heard sobbing, a child's cry. At first I was shocked, I thought I had misheard, but then, behind a spreading willow tree, I saw the figure of a child. Throwing the basins, I approached quickly and what I saw frightened me at first..."

John paused and took a few deep breaths. Rhett was thoughtful with excitement and didn't notice that the doctor had slightly undone the top two buttons of his shirt.

"On the bank of the river, leaning against a tree, sat a young woman, and beside her, clasped in her hand, sat a little boy who was crying. The woman had her head on her chest, and at first I was afraid she was dead. I tried my best to smile at the boy and tell him, "I'm a doctor," then gently took the woman's hand and felt for a pulse. She was alive, Captain Butler!"

John said the last phrase with such relief that Rhett didn't notice as he sighed himself and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand.

"Please continue," Rhett asked him quietly, and the doctor spoke again.

"I carefully touched her head and, you know, her face, her snow-white skin, with traces of tears or sweat, a few curly locks on her face... I imagined a broken porcelain doll. Yes, that's how I found my wife..." he closed his eyes for a moment, took another deep breath as if he were running out of air and continued, "She was unconscious and I realized that I had to take her with me, to find a place in the wagon. I remember turning to little boy, our Wade. But he was so scared that he didn't speak at first. I reassured him as best I could, explaining that I was a doctor and would take care of him and his mother. I had to ask him if it was his mummy and he nodded. While I dealt with the wagon issue, having had a bit of an argument with the other doctor, Wade stayed close to her, holding her by the skirt... I tried to ask him some more details before we left, but all he could say was his name and his mother's name.

I found some food, we, doctors, always had a supply of rusks and water, and fed the boy, while he was riding in the wagon next to his her. All day we got to the train, all day she was unconscious... At stops I would check her temperature, gently wipe her face, moisten her lips with water. For some reason I was afraid, very afraid for her life from the beginning."

John stopped again and looked out the window as Rhett tried to calm the trembling in his palms, afraid to close his eyes and see all the things he'd just heard.

The train tilted a little, turned and the sun peered into the compartment as it began to flirt with the passengers, but both men sat serious, agitated, one from being immersed in painful memories, the other from the fact that he had heard about her for the first time in months and, what he had heard, shocked him. Goose bumps ran up and down Rhett's spine, the fact that she'd almost died there, near that damn river, on that damn land she'd longed to go to, and he'd been the idiot who'd driven her... "Didn't drive her, but left her," his inner voice said mercilessly, and he involuntarily clenched his hands into fists out of powerlessness, out of the impossibility of changing the past.

"Has she been unconscious long, Doctor?" asked Rhett suddenly, trying to find out more.

The man looked away from the window, took a breath and continued, "She woke up on the train, I found a place for her beside me, though there was no time for the doctor to sit and admire the view," he said with a bitter smile, "I was with the wounded, but I found a place for her and Wade and often came up to them. She woke up early in the morning when everything in the coach was grey, the dawn was still breaking. You know," he paused again, looking out the window at the woods they were passing, "I used to hunt in the Kentucky woods with my father when I was a young man. Not to say that I enjoyed it... We chased deer... And one day, when I was a little behind the group, I noticed a young doe, and she noticed me. You know, Captain Butler, I'll never forget that look of fear and trust. Well, it was her green eyes that reminded me of the eyes of the doe... She looked at me frightened, but realized she had nowhere to run, so she trusted me..."

At these words John looked again into the black eyes of the man across from him and said, "I'm sorry, maybe I'm boring you with my memories, maybe you think I'm some kind of weirdo, but..."

"I don't think anything, Dr Carter," Rhett said earnestly, "just continue, please. I know it's important for you to tell everything."

"And for me to find out everything," Rhett thought to himself, looking at the doctor expectantly.

"Well, there's not much more to tell, Captain Butler. My wife had no memory of any event in her life, not even of her name. She did not remember her son, but she did not intuitively push him away. Her hands remembered many actions, including those of a medical nature. Later, in several weeks, she helped me to take care of the wounded and I realized that she must have worked in the hospital before being where I found her... In Augusta we began live nearby, after a while I confessed my feelings and she agreed to marry me."

Hearing that last sentence, Rhett held his breath and his heart sank...

"And her relatives? Did you try to find them in any way?" he asked, glancing at the doctor's wedding ring.

"You know, during the war, my main concern was her health, at least physically. She was so exhausted, so thin. I suppose she shared her food with her son. I was very afraid of typhus, but it didn't happen... My Scarlett is very strong, a real little warrior," said the doctor, smiling affectionately, and then added, "and by the way, she's not a gentle doe as you might think, Captain Butler! She's a stubborn little mule, I tell you," and he grinned a little.

Rhett knew. Oh, how he loved that defiance in her, that stubbornness that made her so special, so different from everyone else...

"But," the doctor went on, "there was a real hurricane through our country during the war, and Sherman, as you know, of course... How do you find someone in that situation? And after the war we were able to move to Saratoga Springs. It was by chance I was helping a high-ranking military man from the North, and he sent me a job offer. So we ended up there, and today is the first time I've left Scarlett and Wade alone, if only for a few days, but I'm so restless and unaccustomed..."

"You haven't been away for a day?" asked Rhett quietly, reaching for his cigar.

"Yes, not a day. One day, it was just after Christmas, 1865, I just confessed my feelings to Scarlett recently and wanted to send her to my parents to Columbia. Oh, that was our first quarrel with her. She flatly refused to go without me, even tried to cry, and then got angry... I remember giving up. And then I thanked the heavens I hadn't let her go. Sherman came to this town, the town of my childhood. And he burned it down. Destroyed it. You've heard, Captain Butler, the atrocities that took place. My parents' house burned down. They died. If she had left, I would have lost her and my son. But as it was, we stayed together."

The doctor fell silent, watching Rhett, who was twirling the cigar in his hands and thinking.

He reached up to light it when he heard the doctor's voice say, "Excuse me, Captain Butler, may I ask you not to smoke?"

Rhett looked up in surprise and John continued, "You see, I'm having a little trouble breathing, that's why I'm going to New York, and the smoke makes me feel unwell..."

Rhett nodded and was about to ask another question, but there was a knock on the compartment door then the dark-skinned attendant smiled politely and said, "Gentlemen, would you like to eat?"

The men looked at one another and nodded. Rhett didn't really want to eat, he felt strange. There it was, the long-awaited sense of relief - she was alive and well! She's not starving and she's smiling on the platform... But why the hell was he tearing up inside? Why does he feel so lousy that he's ready to get drunk?

She was alive. She was someone else's wife.

As they sat down at a white tablecloth table, Rhett dared to ask, "Dr Carter, do you think your wife's memory... Will she recover?"

"I'd like to know that too, Captain Butler. I've talked to many colleagues about it, and I'm going to ask a friend in New York. We don't know much about such disorders, but I suspect, and my colleagues agree, that memory can return, for example in the case of a severe shock. And not necessarily a bad one, it could be a good, joyful emotion.

"And, why didn't you take your wife with you to New York? And your son?"

John looked calmly at his interlocutor and replied, "For a number of reasons, Captain Butler. Firstly, I told you, didn't I, that my wife came to her senses on the train, apparently it was a frightening, difficult moment for her... You know, she won't admit it, but I've seen her nervous on the train. Even though she hides it. The station, the smell of smoke, the loud noises... It's probably her psyche's way of protecting her. I asked her not to see me off, but she stubbornly insisted, saying Wade likes trains..."

Rhett listened intently, remembering the terror with which they had left burning Atlanta. The smoke, the fire, the thunder of the explosions...

"And the second reason," John continued, "this trip is for a couple of days and I'm consulting on two things. With a friend of mine, he's just sailed from Europe, he's a doctor, and also with an acquaintance, about contacts for a good lawyer and investments."

Hearing the last sentence, Rhett immediately said, "My lawyer is a reliable man, I can give you his contact, you can write to him about anything..."

"Thank you, Captain Butler," John replied calmly, adding with a smile, "I've only known you for an hour, but there's something about you that makes me believe you. You've learned a lot about me. Why don't you tell me about yourself? Are you married? Any family?"

Rhett shook his head in the negative and John said with a frown, "I'm sorry, I seem to have hurt your feelings."

Rhett was silent, but then suddenly some force compelled him to speak, "I lost someone dear to me... A woman..."

"She's dead?"

"Missing... I lost her in the hurricane of this war..."

John looked at him sadly, but drinks and food were being brought to them and the conversation seemed to be over, when he suddenly asked, "Did you love that woman very much?"

Rhett lifted his black eyes and answered, "Very much. Sometimes, I used to come to the town where she lived just to see her eyes. It was enough. I looked for her, but I didn't find her..."

John sighed and then said, "You know, Captain Butler, if you've been looking for her, don't stop. Keep looking. Such stories don't have to end like this... And the feelings don't go away."

Rhett looked at him bitterly, then took the wine glass and just said, "Let's drink to your wife's health, Mr Carter."