by Nancybe

She felt as if she was immersed in the murky depths of the windblown sea that lay beyond her window. The frigid water seemed to be holding tightly to her arms and legs making it difficult for her to move. Darkness clouded her vision as if she was far from the sun, and the world around her was a blur. Icy salt water seemed to fill her ears garbling the sounds that intruded upon her. Julia Hoffman felt dead and empty inside, devoid of all emotion at a time when she should have been consumed by it. She lacked the energy to be angry, outraged, and sad – as she should be – and just felt nothing. Her world was gray and lifeless, and she had no interest in anything, not even the basic human functions of eating and sleeping. She rarely spoke and when she did it was only in response to questions asked of her. She wanted only to be left alone to deal with her tragedy, and her way of doing this was to ignore that she still had a life to live or that life went on around her.

She had had to suffer through Joyce’s funeral and the police investigation, and she had struggled to remain lucid throughout those ordeals. There had been questions, so many questions that she didn’t know how she had managed to get through it all. The family, the police, had all wanted to know what had happened, how Joyce had fallen out of the window at the Old House. Fortunately, she and Barnabas had become quite adept over the years at explaining the unexplainable, and they had been able to satisfy both the police and the family. It seemed clear to everyone that Joyce had hated Julia and had stolen her gun, had tricked Julia into coming to the Old House and had tried to make it appear that Julia had attacked her for being with Barnabas. Joyce’s plan was to kill Julia and claim it had been done in self-defense. Instead, they had struggled over the gun, and Joyce had fallen to her death by accident. This explanation, without mention of Angelique or witchcraft, had been accepted by everyone, and the investigation had been closed; the Collinsport police were not likely to question the Collinses very rigorously about anything that happened at Collinwood.

Barnabas had been at her side through it all, making funeral arrangements, answering for her when she was unable. He had been there for her to lean on and to give her support, but she had ignored his presence as much as possible. She felt nothing for him. He had repeatedly tried to talk to her, to apologize for his involvement with her sister and to explain the circumstances, but she neither listened to him nor cared what he had to say. He had attempted to draw her out and to get her to talk about her grief and anger, but he had met with only a wall of silence and a blank stare. The only reaction he had received had come when he had touched her, and she had jerked violently away from him.

She had no more fight left in her. She had fought all of her life to be happy, to achieve her goals, to keep her family together, and it all had gone for naught. It was too hard to try anymore, and she no longer had the energy. She wanted only to curl up and die so that the misery that had been her life would be over. Perhaps it would have been easier to bear if it hadn’t seemed like she was finally going to live out her dreams – a life with a mortal Barnabas, a renewed relationship with her sister who seemed to love her again. But her dreams had evaporated the moment she had opened to door to Josette’s room, and this time it was just too much. Her world was now wreathed in a gray mist, and that was the way she wanted it to remain.

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard gasped in dismay upon entering the drawing room of her home. Julia sat on one end of the sofa with glazed, sightless eyes, and she did not acknowledge the presence of her friend. Liz had been becoming increasingly concerned about Julia’s welfare knowing that she refused to eat, could not sleep, and showed little interest in anything at all. But the Julia Hoffman before her had retreated into herself to such a degree that Liz feared that she was comatose. The woman before her was truly a shadow of the formerly vibrant woman who had lived at Collinwood for so long.

Elizabeth sat next to Julia, and gently took hold of her hand. "Julia, can you speak to me?" she asked in a soothing but worried voice.

"Hmm?" Julia mumbled, not turning her head in Liz’s direction.

"Julia, I’m very worried about you. I think you need to get some help."

Julia slowly turned to face her friend with a lifeless expression. "Help? Why should I need any help, Elizabeth? I’m perfectly fine."

"No, you are not, Julia. You won’t eat and you don’t sleep – I’ve heard you wandering the halls at all hours of the night. You can’t go on like this, Julia. You are making yourself ill," Elizabeth insisted.

"I’m sorry if I have disturbed you at night, Liz. I have had a little insomnia lately, but otherwise, I’m doing just fine." Julia voice was soft and indistinct, not at all like the forceful tone that had served her so well over the years.

Elizabeth took both of Julia’s hands in hers and was shocked by their clamminess. "Julia, I have tried to leave you to deal with your grief in your own way. You seemed to want to do this on your own so I have kept everyone away from you as much as possible, even Barnabas." She watched as Julia flinched at the sound of his name. "Everyone is entitled to some time to come to grips with tragedies in their lives, and for some reason, those of us at Collinwood seem to have had more than our share. But this has gone on for too long now, Julia. It has been over a week since Joyce’s funeral, and you seem to have gotten worse. We are all worried about you; you’re like a member of our family, you know that. It’s time that you got some help." She squeezed Julia’s icy hands tightly but was rewarded with no response, and she silently berated herself for waiting this long to insist that the woman acknowledge that she needed professional help.

Julia rose from the sofa and slowly made her way to the French windows to stare unseeing out at the billowing trees. "I am a psychiatrist, Elizabeth," she said through gritted teeth with a slight touch of bitterness in her voice. "I should know if I require some kind of help." She turned back to Liz and her face wore a look of determination. "And I am not in need of anything of the kind. I can handle this on my own."

Damn doctors, anyway! Liz swore to herself. They always think they know what is best, and they never apply any of their own medicine to themselves. She crossed the room to Julia and put her small but strong hands on the other woman’s shoulders. She knew that she was getting nowhere and shrewdly decided to switch tactics. "I have another idea, Julia. At the very least, you need to get away from here to think. You need a new setting, one without so many painful memories."

"Where would I go? I have no one, nothing," Julia said obstinately.

"We have a cottage on the ocean a few miles down the beach that you could stay at. No one would bother you there and it would give you time by yourself to think. You need to go on with your life, Julia."

"I have no life to go on with, Elizabeth," she answered in despair, starting to turn away again.

Liz tightened her grip on her friend’s shoulders and looked at her with steely determination. "Julia, I insist that you do this. If you don’t, I will have to take other measures. I will get Barnabas involved –"

"No!" Julia protested, and Liz could feel her begin to tremble.

"Alright, then tell me that you will go to Seaspray to sort this all out."

"Seaspray? I’ve never heard of it," Julia said sullenly, knowing that she was beaten.

Liz suppressed a small smile of triumph; at least she had made some progress. "It is rather a family secret, kept for certain occasions such as this one. You never know when a member of the Collins family is going to need some kind of retreat. Only Roger and I know of it now; Carolyn isn’t even aware it exists. It is yours, Julia. I promise you will not be disturbed."

Julia gave her friend a pleading look and weakly threw up her hands in surrender. "I give up, I’ll go. But, Elizabeth, promise me you won’t tell him where I am. Please! Promise me."

"I promise, Julia, if that is what you want. I’ll go take care of the arrangements so that you can leave right away."

Elizabeth looked up from her paperwork later that afternoon at the sound of the front door opening. She watched silently as Barnabas entered the room; this was the moment she had been dreading since Julia had left.

"Good afternoon, Elizabeth," Barnabas said in a solemn voice. "I’ve come to see Julia." He sounded hopeful and despondent at the same time.

Elizabeth looked at him closely and was alarmed at his appearance. His manner was weary from lack of sleep, and his face was gaunter than usual. The term "hauntingly handsome" certainly applied to her cousin, she thought to herself. Before she had met Barnabas, she would have been at a loss as to the meaning of that expression.

Liz stood up from her chair to approach him. A worried look crossed Barnabas’ face as if he was afraid to hear what she had to say. There was no easy way to tell him this. "Julia is not here, Barnabas," she said gently.

"Where is she?" he asked anxiously.

"She has gone away. She needs time to heal, Barnabas. We need to allow her the time to do that."

He took a step closer to her, and she thought for a moment that he might try to shake the truth out of her. "Elizabeth, you must tell me where she is. I must see her!"

"She asked that I tell no one where she has gone, Barnabas, especially you." She could tell that this last had stung him and regretted having to say it. But she knew that he had mistreated Julia often in the past, and he deserved to do some thinking about his actions.

"Elizabeth, please," he pleaded. "I need to talk to her. I need to make things right between us." His dark eyes fixed on hers, and despite that he was her cousin, she could understand why Julia had been able to deny him nothing.

"I’m sorry, Barnabas," she answered. "I gave Julia my word," she said, matching his stare.

Barnabas started to protest, but seeing her look of determination, decided against it. Elizabeth turned away resolutely, and he left the mansion, frustration evident on his weary face.

Barnabas Collins felt as if electric shocks were jolting his body. He was desperate to find Julia, to talk to her, to explain. It had been hard enough to see her at Collinwood and to suffer through her refusal to even acknowledge his presence but not seeing her at all was more torture than he could bear. Each day, he thought about her until he literally began to shake from his need to see her, and when the sensations became unendurable, he would walk to Collinwood to try to ascertain her whereabouts. He had been singularly unsuccessful each time. No one but Elizabeth knew where Julia had gone, and Elizabeth had refused to tell him what she knew.

This day, he had not even been able to wait until a reasonable time to go to Collinwood. He had accosted Elizabeth in the dining room as she had eaten her breakfast, but she was adamant about her promise to Julia. She had offered him breakfast, but the thought of food made his stomach protest unpleasantly, and he had reluctantly returned to the Old House without hope.

He sat staring into the fire after this latest failure, full of self-recrimination. How could I have let this happen? he thought in anguish. Julia and I were so happy. Everything was going so well until Joyce came. And Angelique. My God, I might have killed Julia that day! He buried his head in his heads at the thought that Angelique and Joyce had almost caused him to pull the trigger on the gun that he had been forced to point at Julia.

But you didn’t, you couldn’t do it, he reminded himself. You fought the spell. Oh, but I didn’t fight hard enough! he berated himself angrily. How many times he had been over this. He had not wanted to admit that he had been attracted to Joyce, but he was beyond self-deception. She had sucked him in. He had always been taken in by feminine wiles, thinking with his – well, not thinking with his head. How could he have let it happen again?

Willie came down the stairs and saw Barnabas sitting dejectedly by the fire. Shaking his head, he went over to his friend with a sigh. "Don’t look like ya had any luck with Mrs. Stoddard today, Barnabas."

"No, Willie," he muttered. "She still will not tell me where Julia is."

"Well, ya gotta find her, Barnabas. I have a really bad feelin’ about this. I’m plenty worried about Julia." Willie’s voice became more frantic as he went on. Seeing Barnabas sitting there had reminded him of how the man had looked a few months back, how hopeless and depressed. It made him nervous to think that Julia was feeling this same way, but that she was alone with no one to help her as Willie and Julia had finally been able to help Barnabas.

"I’m worried about her, too, Willie, but she doesn’t seem to want to see me."

Willie moved around so that he was right in Barnabas’ face, and his wild expression jolted the older man. "Barnabas, I think she might be depressed just like you was a while back," Willie said urgently. "And she doesn’t know how to fight her way out of it. Barnabas, do ya remember how you felt when you were like that?"

Willie’s words struck a nerve in Barnabas. He remembered clearly how empty he had felt before Julia had found him on the beach – how empty and self-destructive. "Yes, I remember, Willie," he said worriedly, rising quickly from his chair. " And I have to do for her what she did for me."

Elizabeth had never seen Barnabas Collins move as fast as he did as he rushed in to the drawing room, and she was as concerned about his appearance as she was his haste. His usually impeccable clothing was disheveled, his hair was askew, and his eyes were red and swollen from crying. She hardly had time to catch her breath before he was upon her.

"Elizabeth, you must tell me where Julia is. It is very important. I am incredibly worried about her," he said in a rush.

Elizabeth sighed heavily. Really, the man was the most persistent person she had ever met. Why, he had just been here a few hours before, and she had told him in no uncertain terms that she would not allow him to find Julia. What more did she have to do?

"Barnabas, I have told you several times, I promised Julia-"

Barnabas grabbed hold of her shoulders in a firm grip and looked her directly in the eye. His abrupt manner frightened her, but she gallantly met his gaze. "Elizabeth, you MUST tell me. I simply have to find her, help her – " He broke off and turned away, swallowing the sob that threatened to escape from his throat.

Liz regarded her cousin with great concern. She had never seen him cry, and it intensified her worry for him and for Julia. Something about his urgent manner touched her and forced her to reconsider the promise she had made to Julia. She walked over to him and gently touched his shoulder. "Alright, Barnabas, I will tell you where to find her," she said softly.

He whirled around to face her, his brooding face blanketed with gratitude and expectation.

"She is at Seaspray."

"Where?’ he asked in confusion.

"So you do not know of it either," she said, his ignorance answering her unspoken question. "It is a cottage that the family owns on the ocean. Let me get you the directions."

When she had explained to him how to find the house, Barnabas reached out and squeezed her shoulders in gratitude. "Thank you, Elizabeth. You do not know what this means to me," he murmured.

She gave him a close look, narrowing her eyes as he headed for the door. "Don’t hurt her anymore, Barnabas," she called after him in a soft but firm voice.

The late October wind blew an unusually sultry breeze across the ocean surprising Barnabas with its warmth. As he approached Seaspray, he could not help but think that it looked like a cottage from a fairytale, somewhere Snow White or Sleeping Beauty would have used to take refuge from the evil forces in their lives. He realized that this was just what Julia was doing, hiding from the evil that had penetrated her life. "Oh, Julia," he murmured to himself. "Fairy princesses cannot stay in hiding forever, and neither can you, my love." But he knew that convincing her of this was not going to be easy. Her wounds were too deep, her experience too traumatic for her to face her life again.

Knocking at the door, he could not remember when he had felt as nervous and anxious as he did at this moment. His wait seemed interminable, but finally the door was pulled open, and he saw with relief that Julia was indeed at home.

"Barnabas." She spoke his name as a statement with no emotion, no affect in her voice. He was shocked at her appearance; she hardly resembled his Julia at all. Her normally thin figure was now skeletal, her fine cheekbones even more prominent in her sallow face. Her eyes held no light, and she looked at him with lifeless pools of green. He longed to crush her to him and to bury his face in her hair, but he did not dare to touch her. The invitation was not there, and he was desperately afraid she would reject him if he tried to hold her.

She had said nothing but his name and had not moved from her place in the doorway. "May I come in, Julia?" he asked quietly.

She did not answer him but offered no resistance when he edged past her to enter the room. Barnabas scanned the cottage quickly, trying to assess the place that Julia had been calling home for the past few weeks. The small cottage was charmingly decorated; it managed to appear quaint and elegant at the same time. It was trimmed in soothing colors of coral, salmon and sea green that complemented its location by the sea, and he could see Elizabeth’s influence in the décor. But he frowned when he realized that the rooms looked unlived in despite Julia’s presence for several weeks. There was none of her touch, and he wondered how she had been spending her time.

Barnabas removed his cape and, laying it over a chair, turned to her to begin the speech he had rehearsed in the car. "Julia, I forced Elizabeth to tell me where to find you. I have been frantic with worry over you since you left without explanation." She had closed the door behind him but had not moved any further into the room. He started to move closer to her but held his place when he saw her defensively cross her arms across her chest.

She looked past him with dead eyes, and he shuddered involuntarily. He had literally known dead creatures that had exhibited more emotion than Julia did, and this thought frightened him. He thought that she looked as if she could walk into the sea and drown without knowing or caring about her fate.

"I’m fine, Barnabas," she finally said in a flat voice.

He wanted to shake her just to elicit the tiniest amount of emotion from her, even if it was anger or hatred for him. At least it would show that she cared, that Julia still lived somewhere inside the empty shell that stood before him. "Julia, you are not fine. You’ve lost weight; you’re not taking care of yourself. Please let me help you," he pleaded with her.

"I don’t need any help, Barnabas, especially not from you," she snapped, and he saw the first flash of emotion she had displayed in a long time. Despite her hurtful words, he was glad to hear a note in her voice, and it gave him hope. He suddenly saw his path: he must make her FEEL again, feel something, anything, even if it was anger.

"Julia, we must talk about what happened – between us, between you and your sister." He watched her closely and saw her flinch at his mention of Joyce. He stepped closer to her and fixed her with his deep eyes. For a brief moment, he remembered how often he had willed people to look at him when he had possessed his vampire powers, and he wished that he could do that now. He needed her attention if he was going to succeed with what he needed to do. "Julia, I cannot tell you how sorry I am about what happened with Joyce. I know that I hurt you. I never meant to…I love you, Julia. I love you with all my heart."

He took a step toward her and reached out to touch her. He needed to feel her, to hold her again, but before he could get any closer, she reacted as if a switch had been thrown inside of her.

She stumbled backward away from him and pierced him with blazing eyes. "Barnabas, you bastard! You son of a bitch! How dare you tell me that! How dare you…" She choked on her words before continuing in a torrent of recriminations. The words poured out of her in a flood, years of hurt and rejection channeled into one outburst. "I thought – I thought you had finally turned to me, finally after all this time. I thought you had realized what has always been right in front of you and that you had reached out for me. And I was prepared to be there for you, to give you everything I had to give, and from that moment on, the past would be forgiven, forgotten."

She began to pace around the room then like a caged animal, spitting the words at him. They were hateful and they stung, and he did not want to hear them, but he knew that he must if Julia was to heal. "And then SHE came, and she was beautiful, and you couldn’t keep your eyes off of her. And she played her sordid little game and preyed on my sympathies like she always did. And like a fool, I fell for it – again! Again and again and again! How could I have been so stupid? She wanted to hurt me. That’s all she ever wanted to do all of her life. And she sucked you into her web. Oh, I know Angelique was involved, Barnabas. I know you were under a spell and that it wasn’t all your fault. But I can’t help thinking that you could have resisted, tried harder. Maybe that isn’t fair, Barnabas, I know it isn’t fair, but I just can’t help it!"

Her hands balled into tight fists as she ranted at him with tears streaming down her tortured face. "Can you imagine how I felt, walking in and finding you ready to go to bed with her? My sister and the man I loved? And then you turn a gun on me, and I truly thought you were going to kill me, Barnabas. And then to watch Joyce slip through my hands and fall from the window and know there was nothing I could do for her. My sister died in my arms, and I couldn’t save her, Barnabas! I couldn’t save her," she whispered, her voice trailing off. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and she slumped against a chair for support. She felt totally spent by this outburst, and the pain tore sharply through every part of her body.

Barnabas, his face full of torment, came to her and tried to hold her, but she turned on him in fury. "Don’t you dare touch me, you son of a bitch! I wish I’d never met you!" she shrieked into his face. And then she began to hit him, to pummel his arms, shoulders and chest with her balled fists. She lashed out at him in a frenzy with little rational thought guiding her. Barnabas let the blows rain down on him without resistance. He thought that she deserved at least this much from him, and he was willing to bear the bruises that she might inflict upon him in penance for his many sins against her.

Abruptly, Julia stopped her assault. Trembling, she looked up into his ebony eyes and found only kindness and love reflected in them. She uttered an anguished cry from deep in her raw throat, and flew out of the cottage down to the darkened beach. She stood staring into the roaring blackness of the restless ocean, her chest heaving in heavy sobs. She wrapped her arms around herself in a protective hug and tried to shut out the feelings he had awakened in her. Damn him! she swore, realizing that she could no longer bury the conflicting emotions that now ran rampant through her. So many emotions, more than she thought she could bear: grief for her dead sister; guilt that she had been unable to save her; hatred for Joyce and all that she had done to Julia over the years; anger at herself for having been taken in again; guilt that on one level she was glad Joyce was dead; anger at Angelique and at Barnabas for their roles in the tragedy; guilt that she still blamed Barnabas even though he had been under a spell; and of course, as always, incredibly bittersweet love for him.

Inside the cottage, Barnabas grabbed his cape and followed Julia down to the lonely shore. He stood for a long moment watching her in her torment much as she had watched him a few months ago. His heart ached to see the emotions that violently flooded her body, and he silently made his way to her. She jumped in surprise when his gentle hands grasped her shoulders from behind. She tried to flee from him, but his hands renewed their grip, and he turned her to face him. Her hands flew up to pound at his chest in protest, but he refused to release her.

"No, I won’t let you go, Julia. I won’t ever let you go again," he whispered into her ear.

He enfolded her in his strong arms and pressed her close to him as if she was a wounded bird. He felt her heart beating wildly in her chest as the sobs shook her slight form. He drew from the memory of their last night on the beach just a few short months ago, and he tried to send her the strength that she had imbued to him on that desolate evening. Her healing strength had coursed through him then, and now it was his turn to channel it back to her when she so desperately needed it.

After an untold time, her sobs subsided, and she sank into his embrace exhausted by her outpouring of grief. Brushing back tangled auburn locks, he gently placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Julia tilted her face up to him, and her lips met his in an urgent kiss, a kiss full of hope and desperation, pain and passion. It was a kiss unknown by either of them before, a kiss of salvation and resurrection for both of them.

"I love you, Julia. I love you, I love you," he murmured over and over in a voice choked with emotion as he kissed her again and again.

"And I love you, Barnabas," she sighed as his lips caressed her neck and throat. His lips traveled to the open neck of her blouse, and he desperately wanted more of her. All of her. And he did not want to wait any longer.

His large fingers fumbled anxiously at the buttons on her blouse as his mouth eagerly sought the silkiness of the skin beneath it. His hands finally grasped the fabric and impatiently pulled it apart sending the now unanchored buttons cascading unseen to the sand below. His kisses were hot and eager, and his ardor made her gasp in pleasure and surprise.

He lifted his head and sought her lips again, and with one hand, he unfastened his cape and sent it billowing to the sandy beach. He felt her deft fingers releasing the buttons of his shirt and pushing it off his muscular shoulders. It fell to the ground like a white flag of surrender at their feet. She lightly ran her cool fingers over his chest, and the delightful sensations she aroused in him made him shiver. She wrapped her arms around him and raked his broad back with her fingernails as she brushed tantalizing kisses across his chest.

Barnabas groaned, and when he could stand it no more, he sank to his knees in front of her. His arms flashed around her waist, and he pressed warm kisses against the smooth, taut skin of her belly. Clutching her tightly, he buried his cheek against her bare stomach and closed his eyes. She gripped his shoulder firmly with one hand and wound the other in his dark, wavy hair.

They held each other for centuries, for eons, joined in their embrace by the turbulent ocean tableau that surrounded them. Barnabas listened gratefully to the pounding of her heart, strong and whole now. Grasping her hips with both hands, he pulled her down to face him. His mouth covered her with insistent kisses, and she leaned her body into his, their bare flesh mingling together for the first time. His hands went to her delicate shoulders, and he gently laid her back against his warm cape using it as a blanket.

And then, there was only . . .

The sound of the sea lapping in an ancient rhythm against the waiting shore;

The sweet taste of her filling his mouth and burning his lips;

The scent of the salty breeze boldly caressing them with its feathery touch;

The sight of the filigreed moonlight bathing them in a milky glow;

And the gritty feel of the sand dusting their skin as their bodies moved together in ecstasy.

The sea, the wind, and the night sky were the only witnesses to their glorious union, silent witnesses that would remain forever mute.

Nine months later, a precious baby girl was born to Barnabas and Julia Hoffman Collins. She was christened Robin Elizabeth Hoffman Collins after her maternal grandparents and her dear godmother, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. But at home, she was often affectionately called Sandy for reasons known only to her parents.

THE END

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