Come Home to Me, A rewrite of a scene from episode 660/1 & 667 By Mary-Lynn Allard

The setting: Victoria Winters has gone to the past to be with Peter Bradford, the man she loves, but something has gone wrong. All signs point to her needing Barnabas to return to the past to help her, and he has decided to go, but he needs Peter to summon him. With the goal of getting Peter to call him back, Barnabas and Julia are searching for Peter’s grave at Eagle Hill Cemetery.

~*~

Barnabas knelt down at the grave that wasn’t there just minutes ago. "Victoria Winters, hung as a witch in 1796."

"But, Barnabas, she didn’t die before when they tried to hang her, why do you think she’ll die now?" Julia asked.

"Last time there was someone else to take her place. This time, there isn’t." He looked up at Julia, his eyes begging her to understand. "I never told you of the events leading up to her death before…"

"No, only that you blamed yourself."

"How can I explain to you what it was like dying and then rising up, my only emotions that of hate, my only desire, hunger? How could I tell you all the dark things I did?"

He took heart from the look on Julia’s face. "I was so obsessed with killing Forbes, when I should have kept him alive and forced him to recant his testimony…"

*

"And so Phyllis Wick died because of me, as had Sarah…" his voice broke, "and my mother. It’s too late to save them, but not to save Victoria. Don’t you see that I have to at least try?"

Julia shook her head. "I understand your guilt, but how do you know that you can change the past?"

"Don’t forget, I’ve lived through it once before. I’ll know what is going to happen before it does.

"And what if you can change the past. You risk everything that ‘is’ now, even your very existence."

Barnabas lifted his head, looking past Julia, into the fearful world of possibilities. "I know."

"And ‘if’ you come back…” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “it could be as a vampire again."

"I know that too, but what would you have me do?" He leaned heavily on his cane. "I am prepared to take the risks."

"Do you love her that much?"

"Love has nothing to do with it," he said.

Julia closed her eyes, her mouth tightening, warning Barnabas that she was angry, and so he quickly said, "You knew Vicki, too. I thought you cared for her."

This time it was Julia on the defensive. "That’s not fair. She chose the past…"

"She chose Peter. To her the past is where she has to be in order to be with him." Barnabas’ eyes grew gentle. "You of all people should understand a woman choosing a man, even if being with him meant that she might die."

Julia’s voice was softer when she said again, "That’s not fair."

"No, it isn’t fair is it?"

He lifted his hand and caressed her cheek. She met his eyes. "Please, don’t go. What if you can’t get back?"

"You don’t believe that I want to come back?"

"But what if wanting isn’t enough to bring you back?"

"Then you must call me."

"And will my call be enough, Barnabas?"

"Julia, if you call me back with your heart, I will come home to you."

"I’m afraid," she said.

"Don’t be." He stood on the other side of the grave from her. "I’m coming back, Julia. Be back here in forty-eight hours. Whether I win or lose against the past, it will be over then and I’ll be back."

He turned his face toward heaven and called for Peter Bradford to call him back to the past, and then disappeared.

* *

Julia stood where the grave had been and no longer was. Waiting forty-eight hours had been tortuous and she had only just kept herself from staying at the grave for the entire time. Barnabas had been successful, and according to the town history Victoria had lived a long happy life with Peter Bradford. With everything he set out to do in the past done, Barnabas should be back.

An hour passed, and then another. Perhaps he couldn’t return. Perhaps he didn’t want to return. He was back in his own time among people he knew and cared for. What if he wanted to stay?

She knew that was her greatest fear… that she would call to him and find that he would not return. Not to her. But she had to try.

She didn’t look toward heaven, nor yell his name out as Barnabas had Peter’s, but she looked down at the spot where Barnabas last stood. She thought of his silly spiked brown hair, and the way a dimple showed in his cheek when he was amused. She thought of his cane he always carried and of his Inverness he wore, both setting him apart from all other men in this time, and of the way he said her name when he was angry with her. She smiled. No woman could get under his skin the way she did.

"Barnabas," she whispered. "Please, come home… to me."

She waited, silent, motionless, calling him with her heart, her mind, her very being. In the spot where she had last seen him, she saw the air swirl and then thicken and then take the shape of a man.

"Julia," he said and then smiled. “I tried to come back, but couldn’t until I heard you,” he pointed to his chest, “here.”

It would be two years and two weeks and almost three days more before Barnabas took her in his arms, and said those other words she wanted to hear, but for now, he held out his arm to her, and walked close beside her, and together they returned to the Old House.

(10-05-2004)