by Marcy Wilson-Cales

Just seeing her there pulled time back to a few days ago, when he had taken her to bed for the first time. After years of passion carefully buried, neither of them had really expected it to happen...or believed it possible...

HE had not. That innocent party at Collinwood, and that harmless game under the kissing bunch...he had not expected Julia to be any different from Liz or Carolyn or Maggie, and she was not. A brief press of the lips and a quick laugh at the sight of Amy putting tinsel in David's hair...that had been all, as far as she was concerned. It had been he who was affected differently. Just the touch of her, the scent of sandalwood and the rosemary pinned to her lapel...the warmth that lit her entire body from the inside...

He found himself wanting that warmth as instinctively as he needed to see the light of the sun.

She had found him withdrawn and alone at his house, the taste of the party stale on his tongue.

(Barnabas, what happened; what changed you? You were in such a good mood...)

When he could not answer, she had touched his forehead for fever, her other hand slipping gently to his wrist to feel the heartbeat underneath...

...sandalwood and rosemary, and soft and warm as sunlight on a morning face. The years of denial were suddenly and irrevocably absurd.

She had been surprised, but yielded. He could not remember taking her upstairs, only being there, and feeling the control pour out of them like water. He could not remember their speaking words. He had been afraid of the consequence even then. He could only touch her in ways that spoke for him, and hope it would be enough.

And perhaps it would be enough, in another woman. But you have been hurt by silence your entire life; you fear no words, and no consequences. I wish I had known. I wish I had asked before I was forced to, and to hear it from your friend's lips instead of yours.

But he could not forget that night. Their emotions were as their touch: hot and frantic, and purely ecstatic. With or without words, they had given themselves totally of the body and soul.

She remembered it too; it passed between them whenever their eyes met. For that reason, she was not looking at him any more. They both knew how badly they wanted that night again, but Julia could not forget his silence, and until he ended it, she could not forgive him.

She had a thin scar, almost like the mark of a knife, across her ribs and under her right breast. He wanted to ask her how she had gotten it.

"Barnabas..." She spoke so heavily for such a soft voice, brushing the thick lock of red that had fallen across one eye--the lock of hair he wanted to push away himself--"I wasn't...ready for any of this." She stopped and heaved a short sigh. "Bridget told you what had happened?"

"Yes."

She gathered her words slowly. "I now have six books to my name, Barnabas. But PATHETIC SUMMER was my first. It was also, the most painful and personal book I have ever written. It enjoyed a brief print run, and a modest collection of praise. And my agent had complete say in the publishing because I really didn't want to think about it. I WROTE it out of a personal feeling of obligation. I didn't care if it lived or died." She swallowed once. "I just felt like I had to." Another swallow.

"When we get back from 1849, imagine my surprise when I find an uncanny check in the mail, my agent's informing me he's had another print run authorized, and five pages of critical praise and reviews are tacked on to it--apparently, people are more interested in influenza than they were in the early 60's." She rubbed her arms briskly, then her forehead; it stabbed Barnabas in the heart to see that even now, she was still determined to not show pain or discomfort around him.

"And then, out of some diseased sense of divine timing, I received notice that my mother's estate has finally been settled."

A tiny clock chimed eleven, and she laughed, humor without humor, harsh and cold. "And I didn't even care about that either, but the lawyers fully expected me to come down here, and MAKE SURE there was nothing here I didn't want for myself."

"And was there not?" Barnabas asked softly. Julia's actions were telling him, more than a confession, just what Julia's feelings were about one Kara Hoffman, ersatz mother.

"No." The word was uttered as short and crisply as it was written. "I thought...there might be some papers...but there wasn't anything I wanted." She was still not looking at him.

To Be Continued

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