If She Hadn't Gone Away  by Bobbi

Julia Hoffman tentatively brought her fingers up to her neck, and shrank back as she watched the ghost of Sarah Collins scold her brother, then watched as her brother begged, actually begged, the ghost to stay. Where had the bully gone, the swaggering, arrogant, violent creature who only minutes before had his hands around her  throat, choking the life out of her? Julia Hoffman watched, undecided as to whether she should gloat, that he'd been taken down, or whether she had to pity him, that he'd been so easily crushed, devastated. How much danger was she still in?

Sarah's ghost was gone, faded away.

Barnabas Collins buried his head in his hands. An anguished sob choked him before it escaped his throat. Dry heaves shook him. How could he weep? There were no tears in him, no life. He was dry, barren,  bereft. His life, such as it was, he had struggled to preserve it. He had killed, tortured, turned into something unrecognizable, an abomination to one he held most dear. For what?

Hoffman. She was still there. Her hand rested on his shoulder. He had no strength, no will, to deal with her now. Hoffman, she'd be amused to see him in this state, emboldened, not that she needed to be any bolder. If he lost the ability to intimidate her, he would be doomed. Her hand still rested on his shoulder. If he turned to look into those cold green eyes, would he see scorn, or triumph?

Each waited for the other to do, to say, what?

Julia Hoffman felt him tremble under her hand. It was as human a reaction as she had seen from him. The first genuine feeling? Most certainly. It's the child. She's the key, what's been missing. She reached out to Barnabas.

His reaction was swift, angry. "I'll have none of your pity, Doctor!"

Julia Hoffman watched him retreat, visibly shaken, back, back into whatever private Hell he inhabited. The brilliant Dr. Hoffman, the insightful Dr. Hoffman she rued her initial approach to him. She'd gone at it wrong, too wrong. She'd attacked his "problem", him, as a fascinating medical challenge. Arrogant and overbearing, isn't that what he called her. Well, all right. She was that. She'd had to be.

But she was also a psychiatrist. And she'd left those insights and skills that she used on her other patients tucked away in another space. If she was going to salvage something from this fiasco, something of her experiments, her discoveries, and her self respect, she had to start over, use her insight as a psychiatrist,  not use it against him, but use it for him, for both their sakes.

"Sarah," she called. "Please, Sarah, come back." Julia implored the air.

Silence.

Then, from nearby, she heard it, the recorder, "London Bridge". "Sarah, you've come back." Julia's palpable relief puzzled the small spirit that now stood before her. "Why did you call me?" The ghost of his sister scowled at Barnabas Collins, as he looked up at her, uncertain whether he might embrace her, wanting to embrace her, but reluctant to face another rebuke.

Sarah didn't understand the summons: "He didn't threaten you again."

Julia moved to the side, so that she was between Sarah and Barnabas, between the dead and the undead siblings. "No, Sarah. He hasn't threatened me again." She bent down to Sarah, lowered her voice in a conspiratorial manner: "But I need your help. He needs my help." Julia tried to explain, simply: "Your brother, he has an illness. That's part of why he behaves the way he does, I believe. I want to cure him, so he can be like he was, before. You want to help, don't you?"

"What can I do?" Curiosity led Sarah to inch closer to Julia.

"I can only help Barnabas if he'll let me. But he has to trust me. And he can't hurt people any more, not David, not Maggie, not Willie, not me. He'll listen to you, if you tell him." She stepped back, and spoke louder, so Barnabas could not miss her next words: "Please, Sarah, don't just leave him, not now."

Julia stepped aside, curious as to Barnabas' reaction to her plea, praying that Sarah wouldn't simply vanish again. Barnabas was too unpredictable, too violent; although, looking at him now, at least for now, she saw no fight in him. His eyes begged Sarah as his voice could not.

But his sister was angry, and sad, and not yet ready to take back her threat, her promise just made. "What do you say, Barnabas?" Her posture, her tone, were all petulance, without mercy.

He held out his hands to her, and when she did not respond, they dropped to his sides. "Sarah, don't leave me. I'm afraid, Sarah, and alone, and there's no one I can trust. This world is so strange to me Sarah. Please, stay with me."

"Of course you're alone, Barnabas. You scare people, and you hurt them, and you want them to be scared of you. You want Dr. Hoffman to be scared of you, and David, and Willie."

"Sarah, please. You don't understand." How could he get her to understand: the bloodlust, the fear, the loneliness, the fear, the hunger, the fear, the pain?  And the fear, it drove him mad, sometimes, as he struggled to appear composed, struggled to play the English cousin visiting his ancestral home, struggled to avoid mirrors and food, running water and questions and mistakes. "How can you understand..."

She eyed him, sadly, and cut him off: "If you do what Dr. Hoffman says, I'll come back, I won't leave you. Then we could play together, like we used to. Do you remember how you played with me, Barnabas?" For the first time since she had spoken to him, Barnabas Collins felt he was not wholly lost. "Yes, I remember Sarah. We used to ride together, and play. I'd like to play with you, Sarah." She hadn't turned away. She hadn't disappeared again, yet. And so he begged her: "Play with me, Sarah. Please."

Julia Hoffman sought clinical detachment. She'd observed Barnabas Collins act a host of roles: always cunning; a veneer of urbanity barely covering ...what? What was beneath, if anything, beneath the ruthlessness, cruelty, violence. Now he sat there, pathetically pleading with his sister's ghost to stay and play with him. Julia observed now, seeking to understand: Sarah had known Barnabas when he was alive, human, and she had loved him. She still cared about him. So far, Sarah had protected her, others, without giving away Barnabas' secret. She had protected him, too; she still loved him. There had to be a way to use that.

"Play with him, Sarah, " Julia urged. "If you do, then we'll let you go for awhile, and I can go back to work, to help Barnabas."

Sarah looked quizzically at Julia. Barnabas should be punished. He had been bad. They didn't play with you, when you had been bad. And then she remembered. She had been bad, not so bad as Barnabas, but she had disobeyed Aunt Abigail, and been rude, and run away. She was being punished, left alone in one of the sheds. It was dark and cold and she was alone and afraid, in the little shed at the edge of the woods where there were wolves and the owls hooted. Barnabas had snuck out of the house, and brought her food, and covered her with his cape and sat with her and told her stories, until early morning, when Ben Stokes had come, to warn them that Joshua would be coming to fetch Sarah back to apologize to Aunt Abigail and go to church.

She faced Julia: "Since you ask me," she finally said, slowly, emphasizing the 'you'. And then she turned to Barnabas, who was just staring at Julia.

He was trying to decide: what game was this? What did she want from him?

"Can we go riding, Barnabas?" Sarah had loved to ride with her brother, on his big bay.

He responded, ruefully, "I don't keep a horse anymore, Sarah."

"Then you can be the horse." She was determined. "Do you want to play 'horse' for me?"

Barnabas hesitated. He searched out Julia's face. There was no hatred there now, or fear. Just...curiosity? She was studying him, his reactions. How amused would she be? It didn't matter, he quickly decided. Let Hoffman laugh at him. Sarah  was there, she was talking to him. She would forgive him. He wouldn't be alone.

"Come, little one," he removed his cape, folded it neatly and set it down, under the tree. Then he bent at the waist, doubled over, legs apart, and let Sarah vault up on his back. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Self consciously, with Hoffman watching him, he nervously 'pawed' the ground.

Sarah's ghost giggled, a warm giggle. "Neigh, " she commanded her 'horse'. And he obeyed.

Julia Hoffman sat where he had sat. As she watched, Barnabas had shed not only his cape but about ten years, or more. With Sarah perched on his back, he neighed and trotted and ran through the woods. They ran in wide circles until Sarah laughed, and said: "Down, now."

Almost giddy, the 'horse' dropped to his knees, and let himself fall forward onto his hands. The little ghost 'dismounted', stroked the shaggy brown 'mane' of her 'steed' and...faded. By the time Barnabas lifted his head, she had vanished.

He stayed there, on hands and knees, for some moments. He turned his head to see Hoffman, sitting, watching him, waiting. "I trust I've entertained you, Doctor." He tried to keep his tone neutral, distant. He wasn't ashamed of playing with Sarah. Hoffman would not make him feel any embarrassment. He stood, brushing the dirt and debris from his knees.

"I wouldn't say 'entertained', Barnabas, but  I will confess to being puzzled. You love that child."

"Why do you find that puzzling, Doctor? I was not always...as I am."

"I understand that."

"Do you?"

"I just caught a glimpse of what you must have been like, as a young man." Julia smiled a little encouraging smile. It was important, she had to establish some level of trust between them. She could hardly talk about re-establishing something that had never really been there in the first place.

His reaction, its vehemence set her back in her seat. "As a young man." He spat the words out at her. "How old do I appear to be to you, Doctor?"

"A man, in his early forties, I would say."

"Would you? I wasn't thirty, Dr. Hoffman, when I 'died'. And now? I can't tell. I can't see my own reflection. I only see what is reflected in others' eyes."

She couldn't let him turn maudlin on her. He needed to have hope, for himself; confidence, in her. Not thirty? It was hard to believe, yet she knew he told the truth, was aware of his birth date from the family history, knew when he 'went to England'. She simply hadn't put it together before, or considered the implications. She started to, now. "And what do you see reflected in my eyes, Barnabas? Look deep. Tell me, what do you see?" She handed him his cape. "And then, we have work to do, if you have the courage. Do you?" She regretted the words, almost as she spoke them.

What was it about this one? What had she done and what was she doing? But getting in the final dig, the last word, if temporarily satisfying, wasn't going to help going forward, if he was still willing to.

No one had questioned his courage. He recovered as much of his dignity as he could, donning his cape. "I have endured much worse than your proddings and potions and injections, Dr. Hoffman."

"I'm certain you have. Come, Barnabas. Tell me about it." And Julia realized, for the first time, she did want to know: what had changed the young man who loved his sister into the vampire who had killed and was clearly prepared to kill again; what had happened to him before he arrived at Collinwood; what she might do to help him move forward in a time alien to the one he had known. She was prepared to learn, and to help, if he would let her. She softened her customary authoritative manner: "Come, back to the Old House. We have work to do and there is time, before dawn."

He looked into her eyes, saw there what? Something that he had not seen there before. Concern? For him and not just for the success of the experiment? She baffled him, this woman, this doctor, so unlike any woman he had ever known. But, perhaps, if they worked together, if he could trust her, perhaps there might be a future, and someone to share it with him, some time, and in the light of day.

With a gallant air, he extended an arm to her. She took it, and together they walked back, in silence, through the woods toward the Old House. Neither, lost deep in thought as each was, heard the sounds of the recorder, floating through the leaves above.