A/N: Sorry I haven't updated this recently! I got terribly sick and I had schoolwork stacked up to my eyeballs! I promise to try and keep that from occurring again :) And thank you for your kind reviews!

Chapter 35: It Happened One Night

Scarlett continued to hold on to hopes of sleep as she dozed, even though the sun was pouring into the room through the windows. She knew she should still feel tired after the... previous night's affairs with Rhett, but she just felt mounting energy keeping her from deep sleep. When she was about to make the decision to wake, someone made the decision for her.

"AHHHH!" Scarlett cried as the blankets were yanked away from her naked body and determined fingers started tickling the bottoms of her feet.

"RHETT! AHH! STOP STOP STOP!" she pleaded through cries of laughter as she thrashed about in an attempt to evade his knowing hands.

"Say you love me and I'll stop," Rhett laughed as he continued his torturous ways up to her sides.

"I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!" she called out and as she did, she felt his attack cease. He then quickly leaped on top of her and rolled them both onto their sides through an embrace.

"I so missed waking you up that way," he told her through chuckles.

"You don't plan to make this a routine do you?" Scarlett asked through laughter as she clung to his naked body and settled her face into his chest. The way he smelled was delicious and she could not get enough of it.

"Absolutely not! That would take away the element of surprise. It will be done only when you least expect it," he replied mischievously.

"What if I expect it all the time?" she jokingly challenged.

"Then I will simply have to come up with a more surprising, yet entertaining way of awaking you. But I sincerely doubt you will expect it all the time though. I did that so many mornings while on our honeymoon and yet you never seemed to anticipate it at all," he laughed as he recalled those precious mornings.

"Maybe not then but I am better acquainted with your devilish ways now," Scarlett teased.

"Oh yes? Then tell me my dear, which of my devilish ways is it that you love most?" Rhett asked seductively while running his fingers up her spine, causing her to buckle into him.

"We can't NOW Rhett! It's the morning and there's so much light coming in the room!" she protested. Although she did want to make love to him again, the timing was indecent and she would feel even more exposed if they did so in the sunlight.

"And your point is?" he whispered into her ear as he drew his body level with hers.

Before she could formulate a response, he took her earlobe into his mouth and started to lightly suck on it, making her writhe excitedly underneath him. During the night, they had both discovered that it was a trigger for her and Rhett had done it several times knowing how she would respond. He was clearly not playing fair, but she saw no need to give a damn.

Lying beside Rhett as he wrapped her hair around his neck, Scarlett started to wonder if they were destined to stay in bed all day and miss dinner with the Lacroix family. Not that she would have minded much; it was more of a passing thought if anything. If they were to miss dinner because of what they had been doing all day, Scarlett wasn't sure if she would find the desire to protest missing it anyway. She was having too much fun with Rhett and her lack of physical contact with him over the years was coming to the surface too strongly to ignore.

"It happened one night during a blockade run into Charleston," Scarlett heard Rhett say slowly, deliberately.

"What happened during a blockade run into Charleston?" she asked feeling as if she had missed something.

"When I fell in love with you," he responded coolly. Scarlett immediately relinquished her pursuit of tracing his chest muscles with her fingers to turn to face him, perching herself on her elbows holding her head in her hands.

"Are you going to tell me the story now?" she inquired excitedly.

"If you wish to hear it," he chuckled at seeing her enthusiasm.

"Do tell!" she encouraged.

"I had been thinking of you ever since our charming encounter in the Wilkes' library. As I had told you then, you were a woman of rare spirit and thoughts of having potentially met my match started to rack my brain. It was infuriating to me how often I thought of you and those gorgeous green eyes of yours and my attempts, however feeble they were, to put you at the back of my mind failed miserably," he told her with an expression that showed her he was laughing inwardly at himself.

"Why did it make you mad how often you thought of me?" Scarlett asked somewhat confused.

"Because a woman had never possessed my thoughts in such a way, nevertheless during such a stressful times. Not to mention the fact that when I met you, you were mooning over Ashley Wilkes and showed no desire towards me. That really hurt me Scarlett. Encountering a woman who didn't want me to sweep her off her feet the second she saw me was such a new experience I didn't quite know how to handle it," he teased.

"You're a dog," she laughed.

"No, I'm a man with ill-concealed appetites," he smiled with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"Have you ever actually tried to conceal it at some point?" she asked already having an idea of what he would say.

"I never saw the need to. It never deterred women from being attracted to me and I actually think it made me even more desirable," he replied humorously.

"Is your life dedicated to attracting women?" she shot at him, not hiding her level of irritation.

"For about 33 years of my life it was, but then I met you sweetheart and then you were the only one I wanted to be attracted to me," he replied with his voice dripping with sarcasm covering up the truth, which Scarlett finally noticed for once.

"Well, if it is any compensation after all these years, I actually did think you were handsome when I met you. But I didn't want to further inflate your already inflated sense of manhood. And of course there's the matter of you having infuriated me," she giggled.

"Thank you for healing such a long standing wound for me, my dear. Now my sense of manhood can now be restored to what it used to be," he smiled to her.

"It better not be! You'll be insufferable," she giggled.

"Most likely and yet you'll love me the whole way through!" he teased. "But anyways, you plagued my thoughts during the first few months of the war when I had started blockade running. Well, there came a night when a particularly uppity Yankee captain refused to allow me and my cargo through into the Charleston docks, no matter how much gold I offered him! He then threatened to have me arrested so I ordered my crew to steer the boat away and just then he called for open fire! When I saw him point his gun directly at me, I swear I saw my whole life flash before my eyes and the image of your face was the last, but most important, image my mind chose to capture. It fueled the already raging fire inside my chest to survive; all so I could see your face one more time. That's when I shot and killed him. Coincidentally, the next run I made was into Atlanta so I could avoid some potentially bitter Yankees at my having killed one of their captains. I swear it must have been fate the brought me there so I could see you in the flesh," he finished to see Scarlett's reaction.

"You fell in love with me when your head was about to be blown off?" Scarlett asked, surprised and amused all at once.

"As I told you last night, I fell in love with you at a most inconvenient moment," Rhett chuckled at his incredibly bad timing.

"You've led a strange life haven't you?" she questioned through rolls of laughter.

"Very strange. Much of it I would like to share with you; which brings me to the matter of making a proposal to you," he left in the air.

"What kind of proposal?" she questioned.

"I believe, as I'm sure you do as well, that there is a lot to be discussed between us; good and bad, but for us to move on it has to come out. Since we are both dreadful at expressing our emotions in a normal capacity, I propose that we get to know each other through a kind of game. You know how we always used to joke about Ella asking 20 questions at a time?" he posed to her.

"Yes..." she answered.

"Why don't we play a game like that to get to know each other? We could play at night since that seems to be our favorite time to talk. We could ask any question of the other with the only rule being that we have to be completely honest. Going off of that though, if one of us feels that the question posed could hold a potentially harmful answer for the other, we can reserve the right to give a warning. Only when pressed further for the answer will it be given. Agreed?" he asked for her to confirm that she understood what he was proposing.

"Agreed. But I want to play now! I don't want to wait until tonight!" she protested with her first question already burning in her mind.

"And let me guess, you wish to ask the first question?" he predicted with a knowing smile.

"Yes!" she responded happily.

"So eager to eat from the tree of knowledge aren't you, my dear? Well, ask away," he allowed.

"Why were you at the barbecue at Twelve Oaks?" she asked eagerly. Due to him not being received, she had always wondered why he would risk getting thrown out of the barbecue in front of the whole county. And why would he come to it anyway?

"Ah! So you wish to start at the beginning!? Very well. I was there because a certain Mr. Kennedy, whom I never would have guessed would be a husband of yours, invited me to go," he informed her.

"Why on earth would he invite you!? Surely he knew you weren't received!" she replied wondering if old Frank could really be so ridiculous.

"I suppose I should reword that. I more or less coerced him into a corner whose only way out was to invite me for him to keep his gentlemanly nature," he laughed.

"How did you do that? And why were you even with him?" she questioned.

"I was with him because I was buying out his stores of cotton. I already knew the war was going to happen and that eventually the price of cotton would go sky high, so I was buying him out in order to transport it all out of the country to store until I could get whatever price I asked for it. When we neared the end of our business, I noticed he started to get a little antsy and when I asked why, he replied that he had a barbecue to attend in the county and I secured an invite simply asking if he'd mind if I joined him. Since I was bored and had nothing else to do, I figured I might as well disturb the peace of the county gentlemen and see how riled up I could get them. It was actually much easier than I anticipated!" he offered her with a face of mock shock.

"Yes, I heard your little speech. I'm surprised they didn't kill you," she chided.

"They should have. I made a mockery of everything they stood for and yet I walked away without one offer for a duel! How disappointing. I figure I should have at least gotten three takers!" he responded with feigned disappointment.

"If I was a man I would have challenged you," she said jokingly.

"HA! You're the last person I would ever agree to enter a duel with! You would pretend to walk your paces with me and before the last step you would turn around and shoot me through the back of the head. First rule to dueling, my love: never enter a duel with someone as dishonorable as yourself. Too many wild cards to anticipate," Rhett chuckled as he ran his fingers through her hair.

"Rhett, how many duels have you participated in?" she asked not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

"Not so fast. I'll answer your question after you answer mine. What's your first memory?" he inquired.

Scarlett flipped through pages of memories in order to find the earliest. She had never really sat down before and attempted to figure out what her earliest recollection was, but she finally found it; assuming that she was correct in her assumption. "I was with my Pa. I can remember a horse nearby as he held me in the water. I think he was trying to teach me how to swim. Oh Lord how I used to love swimming in that river!"

Rhett looked at her curiously, almost as if he were truly seeing her for the first time, before he smiled. "You were a water baby?"

"Yes! I loved the water! Pa insisted all of us girls learn how to swim even though it wasn't a very lady like skill. I'm sure Mammy protested but we learned anyhow, or at least I did. Some of my favorite memories with my Pa are from when we went to the river to swim," she reminisced.

"I bet I'm a better swimmer than you," Rhett challenged.

"Not even in your wildest dreams Rhett Butler," Scarlett laughed.

"I don't know, Scarlett. My dreams can get pretty wild," he winked.

"Oh hush!" she scolded. "Now answer my question. How many duels have you been in?"

When Scarlett once again posed the question, Rhett tilted his head and squinted; as if he was trying to see the number in front of him. It almost disturbed Scarlett that he actually had to mentally tally the number of men he had dueled with.

"Three," he finally spit out.

"Three!?" she practically shrieked.

"Yes, three. You know of the one in Charleston when I refused to marry that fool girl. Another was in New Orleans after a fellow gambler accused me of cheating when I won $300 off of him. And then there was the one in New York during a blockade run when I was accused selling defective handguns. To prove him wrong, I killed him with one of my supposedly defective weapons," Rhett detailed.

"Great balls of fire! Do you enjoy killing people!?" Scarlett cried as she jumped off the bed and away from him to put on her chemise. She had always known Rhett was a murderer, but it upset her that there were so many victims, not to mention the ones he killed outside of a duel, and that he almost seemed to look back on such events fondly.

"I take no pleasure in taking lives, Scarlett. I did what I felt I had to do to defend myself and my pride. And keep in mind that I did most of my killing when I was young," he replied sitting up on the bed to better observe Scarlett's retreat from him.

"So you were still young when you killed the Yankee captain in a bar and that black man which wound you up in jail?" she swiftly retorted.

"I was in my thirties and that's plenty young to me. I don't understand why you are being so critical with me; I told you I didn't enjoy killing those men. Not to mention you are a murderer, same as me," he replied as he put on a lounging robe and started to approach her.

"NO! Not same as you! I killed that Yankee because he was going to... you know!" she shouted at him as she maintained distance from him.

"I seem to recall you telling me that you enjoyed killing him though. I never enjoyed killing those men. That almost makes your murder worse than mine," Rhett threw at her as he leaned casually against the bedpost.

"How dare you! I may have murdered him but you are a murderer MANY times over! Tell me Rhett, how many people have you killed?" Scarlett screamed at him from across the room, fighting temptation to throw a nearby vase.

"13 in all, excluding those whom I might have killed during the war," he responded with growing tenseness. His growing anxiety started to fill the room but Scarlett ignored it and he refused to address it, not wanting to back down from their argument.

"And I'm guessing all 13 of them deserved to die in your warped mind?" she spat at him.

If the air between them had been crackling with Rhett's anxiety and Scarlett's anger, it was now frozen. She had unknowingly stepped over some line and when she did so, she knew it. His face fell, not into his mask, but into a look of shock, horror, and guilt. Scarlett had seemingly succeeded in making him see how wrong he was for his murderous past, but she failed to understand why her last comment had done the trick. It didn't seem to be any worse than her previous comments, but it obviously was somehow.

Rhett stood there staring at her, frozen in place and the room grew cold as an ocean breeze. Neither knew what to say, but before one of them could think of something, Rhett started to quickly get dressed. He can't run away now! Not when I don't know what upset him! She thought.

"What did..." she started.

"Not a word out of you," he bit before she could finish as he finished tying his shoes. His tone was so icy that she was surprised she didn't freeze to death from it. It made her skin crawl.

"We need to..." she trailed off when she clearly saw he would ignore her. Wasn't he the one who said that they needed open honesty? Him leaving now would be him running away from her, truth in hand, never to be exposed. When she saw him striding to the door, she threw her body in front of it to keep him from leaving.

"Move," he said quietly, too quietly.

"No! We need to talk!" she bellowed at him as she tried to make eye contact which he refused to reciprocate.

"I think we have done enough talking for one day. Now move or you'll regret it," Rhett seethed through clinched teeth.

"Or what!? You'll make me number 14!?" Scarlett snidely replied.

At this last snide remark, Rhett finally made eye contact with her and she suddenly wished he hadn't. The hurt and murderous fury raging inside them terrified her. She then observed that his body was shaking slightly, his arms were flexed, and his hands were fisted so tightly by his sides that his knuckles were white. The energy radiating off of him was dangerous and she knew that she needed to let him go; for her safety as much as his own.

When she stepped aside, Rhett threw the door open and marched out, slamming the door behind him. She stood dumbfounded in place for minutes afterwards, wondering what exactly she had said to send him over the edge. They hadn't even been together for a whole day yet and there they were, arguing again. Thinking that Rhett would once again leave her, Scarlett began to cry furiously on the bed. Never had she meant to say something hurtful and she felt genuinely sorry for having hurt him in a deep way; although how she did, she did not know.

Perhaps she should have considered that Rhett had counted their unborn child and Bonnie Blue amongst the ranks of those he had killed.