He found her in the early hours of the morning; she was fast asleep at the dining room table with her cheek resting in the crook of her elbow, her fingers loosely encircling the neck of a half-empty wine glass. The cat was there too, gently batting at her mistress's nose, but her persistent efforts were rewarded with nothing more than a light sniff. She chirruped at the sight of him, fat fluffy tail held high in the air, blue eyes alight with feline warmth, but he made no move to approach, choosing instead to lean against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. As the rain beat its tiny fists above his head, he waited, as he always had, for some sign, even as he knew that there would be none, that his next move would be his and his alone.

Emboldened by her stillness, he began to walk towards her as softly as a cat, stopping when his shadow overtook her. He stood there, listening to her deep, even breathing, watching the flutter of her eye beneath the lid as she dreamed, and finally sighing when he noticed the spittle trickling from her open mouth. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she gave a snort but slept on. Removing the glass from her limp fingers, he leaned her against him before lifting her in his arms. She was light as a feather...as she always had been; she sighed and mumbled something indistinct before burrowing her nose into his lapel. The press of her body against his was oddly calming and as he watched her drift into parts unknown, he had to marvel at how so much fire and fury could be contained within so tiny a frame.

...

This scent...this intensely nostalgic scent...it had been the first thing to disappear even when the voice and face could not; it had been so very long but she could recognize it from anywhere...

A dream...but this one wasn't so bad; there was no pain, no fear, no sheets soaked with sweat and regret but only a pleasant rush through her veins as the scent filled her nostrils, an all-enveloping warmth as his heartbeat, strong and sure, filled her ears, a cool tingle as her fingertips caressed his hair, and a whisper of reassurance as her lips brushed warm skin. Every whiff and caress drove a nail of desire into her heart, but it was a good ache, a respite from the emptiness but this nostalgic scent...it was so close; she could see him from behind her lids...this nostalgic scent was right...here...

She opened her eyes: green met black. She went rigid, flushing at the amusement gleaming in his eyes. She jerked her hands away and tried to wriggle free, but with his arm wrapped securely round her waist and her feet dangling in midair, she was a stuck pig.

"Put me down."

"Can you even stand on your own?"

"We'll find out if you put me down."

As soon as her feet kissed the floor, she spun around and padded towards the sofa while rubbing the grit from red-rimmed eyes. The pins were digging into her scalp so she began removing them with fidgeting fingers. She felt his eyes on her back and the silence wrapped around her as hands do a throat.

"Has this become your new favorite pastime? Watching people sleep? And I've always thought eavesdropping was your forte." He made no response but crossed the room, his face formally composed. "Although you made for a rather poor eavesdropper; shouldn't they at least try to pretend they didn't overhear what they did?"

"What fun would that have been?"

"Rather twisted idea of fun, wouldn't you say?" But the corner of his mouth had turned down: the whites of his eyes were clear, his gaze lucid. Her hands were pale, white spiders and her mouth was full of cotton; she averted her groggy red gaze from his razor one.

"I haven't had a drink in years."

How did you manage to do that? she wanted to ask, but bit her tongue.

"But it seems that you have been making up for lost time; then again, you've never been the poster child for temperance."

She sank further into the sofa. "What do you want, Rhett? I'm sure you didn't come back for my health."

"Maybe I did." She threw him a withering look but he didn't seem interested in playing catch and merely sat across from her.

"Ella's worried about you."

"Am I supposed to believe that she was willing to see you, let alone talk to you?"

"She's lonely, Scarlett. I'm sure that's something even you can understand." She felt a sting then, one that even the rolling sweeping beauty of Tara had failed to vanquish.

"She's more intelligent than you give her credit for; it's truly amazing how much information you can glean from someone if you're willing to lend an ear. I had no idea you had become such a nihilist."

"A what? What are you going on about?"

He chuckled. "Some things never change."

"Can you be serious?" she snapped but then she sighed. "Her handwriting's a horror and her ciphering's lackluster at best. She's a fair rider, but that seems to be about the only thing she's proficient at aside from asking questions and she's asked enough questions to fill a library by now. And lately, her questions have taken a rather odd turn; she keeps asking me if she could marry Will's boy."

"That's considered quite normal by Southern standards."

"It has to stop! I've never paid Beatrice and her ramblings any mind, but you know it's a problem when a wedding begins looking more like a family gathering. Have you taken a look at the Wilkes' family tree? The thing doesn't branch."

"You've always had to say a lot to say about Melanie and Ashley but that wasn't one of them."

She shrugged. "They were made for each other, so what was there to say?"

"I never thought I'd hear you say that."

"Well, they were. And it looks like Beatrice is going to have an uphill battle. Her Randa's finally getting married to some cousin from the next County; Randa's sure to have an easy time with her wide hips but the boy's anemic which isn't surprising given that his parents are cousins as well. They had them over at Fairhill and I nearly had a stroke trying to figure out who was an uncle and who a father-in-law. At this rate, the babes will be their own cousins."

"I thought it was immodest for a woman to discuss these things with a ma-"

"Can you let me finish?"

"Everyone's going on and on about the Republicans, but I think the inbreeding will be the death of us all." She finished with a huff and looked to Rhett, but he was staring down at his clasped hands, his arms braced against his thighs.

"Scarlett."

"What?" she replied, picking at her eye.

"Why did you love Ashley?" She eyed him, her mouth a tight line. Seven years of silence and now you've been to visit me twice in less than a week, asking me all of these personal questions. You're smothering me, Rhett. She leaned back, contemplating the ceiling. It seems Honey isn't the only one with a peculiar taste in men.

"What's the point of asking something like that now? Besides, you've known from the very beginning; isn't that how we got our start?"

"I want to hear from your mouth."

"For the longest time, I couldn't even answer that. I suppose he was handsome back in the day but so were the rest of the County boys. After a while, I think it became a force of habit. The Yankees were taking everything and more. The world had gone mad, but he was always the same; he reminded me of how things once were, when I didn't have to choose between having something to eat or buying new clothes for Wade so he didn't have to sleep in those rags, when Tara was Tara, and when we were the center of the world."

"I believed that he only married Melanie out of duty; after all, the Wilkes always marry their cousins. I'd like to think that," she grimaced, "that he was waiting for me, but the man had always known exactly who he was going to marry and it was never me."

"And when Bonnie died..." She glanced up at him. He was looking at her in silent expectation and she returned his gaze, wondering what had to happen for that glassy haze to finally clear, "I was lost. She was dead, Melanie was going, and you and Mammy had gone. I was scared, so I held on to the only thing I thought I had left."

She trailed off with a wry smile. "Pathetic, isn't it?"

"I wonder if things could have been different if only I had asked."

"How unlike you, talking about what could have been."

"Perhaps I'm getting old."

"You aren't the only one. I found a gray hair the other day; Wade thinks I'm crazy, but it was a long time coming."

She chuckled. "I'd forgotten. He did ask. We were deciding on the engraving for Melanie's headstone when he sprung the question. The man asked me in front of his son. I was more angry for Beau than anything, but I think it was his roundabout way of apologizing to me, although he seemed rather relieved when I turned him down."

"I couldn't imagine why."

She rolled her eyes.

"But your will to survive is as tenacious as anything. You always manage to find something to hold on to. How do you do it?"

"I liked to think it was because I was special, different from those fools who went on and on about their precious Cause, but I was just as scared and penniless as the rest of them. And I was a woman to boot. So there must have only been one explanation: I had gumption and they didn't. I was strong and they were weak, but some of it was just sheer, dumb luck: What if the Yankees had burned Tara? Or what if you had decided that I was just some girl who wasn't worth the trouble? I told myself I would have found another way but I probably would have burned with the rest of them."

"But I've had a good life. I've lost a lot but so have we all. I'm alive; Ella and Wade are too and that's all that matters."

"My, my, is that humility I'm detecting?"

"And here I thought we were having a serious discussion for once."

"But that's exactly the thing, isn't it? We never talked about anything. I daresay we stopped talking after we married. I believed I knew all there was to know, but perhaps I called in my chips too early."

"Scarlett, what I said to you on the landing-"

"That was a long time ago and you've already apologized."

"But I didn't."

"What does it matter? You were right: saying sorry changes nothing."

"No, it doesn't. Apologies alone are a dime-a-dozen, but it was never about saying the words. It's about having the willingness to move forward; we never did move forward from anything. I was afraid to admit that I was a coward, one who couldn't even muster the courage to be my wife's bedside when she needed me."

She stared at him, mouth pushed to one side. "Is this really you talking?"

"If someone as hard-headed as you is capable of changing, then why can't I?"

"And as for Bonnie, I've given you a hard time about your mothering but for all your scolding and austerity, you would never have taken that risk."

"Rhett..."

"If it had been the other way around, I'm afraid I might have-"

"I know. I told myself exactly that. I hoped that it would all just go away. And it did...for a while..."

She remembered the horse, lying on his side, how his cornsilk mane had rustled in the breeze. She knew what those hands were capable of, those hands that could rock a babe to sleep could take life on a whim and on that night, when passion chased away all coherent thought, how she had tasted the desire, had basked in the flames, but had reveled in his violence as well.

"What changed?"

"Pa...I'm sure you know what happened to him; for weeks Sue had been afraid to leave the house and I thought she deserved every bit of it. If it weren't for her, then Pa would still be alive. Will was the only one in the county aside from Careen who didn't blame her for what happened. He knew Sue didn't love him but he was by her side through it all; he forced her to go outside when the entire County was about ready to cut her."

"When Mother died, it broke him. But when he would call for her, I didn't even have it in me to feel sorry. I was angry at him. He loved her, but so did I, so did we all, so why couldn't he just pull it together? They were all angry with Sue for making him sign the thing, but I was angry that they didn't understand the value of money. So what right did I have to accuse her when I would have done the same thing?"

"No matter how you look at it, it was an accident...she was so very much like him, wasn't she? Neither of them could take 'no' for an answer."

"Ah Scarlett, I'd forgotten that your father went the same way."

"I told you that I would come back, didn't I? But I couldn't, not at first. I had to lock that part away; I couldn't risk exposing that part of myself again, but as time went on, I began to wonder if I ever really had..."

"Three times." Scarlett's head jerked up. "What?"

"All these years I've known you and I've only ever showed myself to you three times and at each of those times, well, I don't know many women who would confess their love to any man, let alone their husband, after hearing what I had said to you."

"Maybe there are women like that. I'm just not one of them. But I never did understand why you ran off the way you did. I thought your horse had turned a ditch. I was about to go to the police when you turned up."

Something flickered in those black eyes. "Were you?"

"Yes, you were still my husband and I...cared."

Some emotion, deep and palpable, whispered across his face.

"Unthinkable, isn't it? Me caring."

She shuddered in mock horror and he smiled. "I'll remind you of this one day, and you won't believe me."

The rain was a steady hum now and Scarlett looked down at her clasped hands. "Why...did you take so long? I...was waiting."

"I had to learn how to walk again...but I didn't intend on staying away for as long as I did. You were right, Scarlett. I was..."

"Was what?" He cleared his throat.

She threw her hands in the air. "For Heaven's sake, Rhett. The way you carry on around me, you'd think you were living with the devil."

"For a while I thought I was."

"All that time wasted...well, there's no use crying over spilt milk." He gave a start. "What did you say?"

She smiled. "Melly used to read to them; children are children. Even the end of the world can't change that."

She exhaled, tucking a loose curl behind the ear.

"There's something I never asked you. Your mother had been at the house."

"Yes."

"Did she-?"

"She did."

"I must have made a hell of a first impression."

"Funniest thing, she wasn't surprised."

"Interesting woman. I'd like to meet her someday."

"Perhaps you will."

"Would you have gone through with it, if I hadn't come back?"

"Yes, but remarrying would be out of the question."

"Why is that?"

"Because I would always be settling for second-best."

The eyes glimmered as he traced each of her features and his face was a mixture of contentment and relief.

Warm, golden rays penetrated the thick plush curtains, setting the room aglow. A sunrise...she had never attached significance to such things; the sun rose and fell and that was that and it had become a curse for it meant another day without him, another day where she would have to walk the lonely road of life alone. But here, at this moment, it was as if she were a blind man seeing light for the first time.

"Another day," he mused.

Diamonds danced across the sky and the sun...how it shined.

"Yes, it is."


As for whether they get back together, my answer is currently: I don't know. I think there's just too much evidence to the contrary, but just enough that I cannot say 100% no.