Chapter Text
Three days and nights had passed since Victoria woke freed from the noose meant to end her life back in her proper place in time. Her fears of Barnabas Collins persisted while her soul and mind battled with her torn heart. Despite her clipped bud of an almost romance with Peter, their shared friend who tried to defend Victoria on charges of witchcraft, Victoria loved Barnabas Collins. Yet, his existence troubled the young woman.
Because the rest refused to believe what she learned in the past, the broken young woman held back to remain silent in her bed. She knew what happened, the rip in the fabric of time which sent her into the Collinswood of the past, came about as a battle of intentions between Angelique and Sarah Collins. Good stood against evil for Victoria’s sake. Thoughts of both forced the one survivor to again grieve the losses. Yet, a thought touched the depths of her grief. Victoria was not the sole survivor of the tumult of the Collins family which began in 1790.
Her grief another shared with her. Grief she wondered how Barnabas endured after near two centuries alone. Were the people they loved still in his memories? Sarah was, this much Victoria felt certain about. Did he mourn those he murdered to survive? Millicent, Abigail, the nameless since? Or else, were his victims just cattle? Did he ever feel real love for her? Or was she his Josette reborn in his mind?
Yet, Victoria could not gather enough strength to ask for Barnabas to come to her sick room, forget the concept she would speak to him. She loved him, but how did she relearn to trust the vampire? He killed Daphne and others.
Cold unlike the weather outside began to flood into her room, soaked into her pores in spite of the thick blankets. A possessive chill of the grave encroached from the shadows of the room to slip under her bedclothes like so many hands intent to latch a claim upon her.
A knock on her door drove away the cold but not the fear from Victoria’s voice, “come in.”
“Victoria? Are you alright?” Julia gave a confused expression. Behind her Willie entered the room and seemed worried too.
“It’s nothing. Just fears of the past I suppose. Hello Willie.”
“Hi, Miss. Winters. Sure you’re feeling alright?”
“Someday I hope I will be. How is Barnabas?”
“Oh, he’s good. Worried about you though. He read about you in Sarah’s diary, even read some of it to me. About a game of tag and singing songs her Auntie didn’t like. Sarah really loved you, Miss. Winters.”
Tears flooded her eyes to force Victoria to swallow. “I loved her just as much. There are some questions I need to ask Barnabas. Is he here?”
Willie’s face lit up, lips turned up in a smile of delight. “Yeah, he’s downstairs now. I’ll … I’ll go get him. If you want that is.”
Victoria nodded and Willie rushed off to fetch the man. She did not want to see Barnabas Collins, but Victoria wanted Julia there alone. “How did you help him get into the sun again? No lies or covers. Please, the honest truth.”
“What makes you think what I say about your theory is less than truth?” Julia asked in a slow, deliberate caution.
Hopes of interruption Victoria suspected. “Not theory. Too much evidence. I need the truth. How often did Barnabas feed like he has these last few months over the centuries?”
“You did not hear this from me. Do we understand one another?” Julia charged to gain a nod from Victoria. A look to the door then Julia sighed.
“Barnabas only fed as he has in the beginning because he was starved the entire time from then to now. His father could not bear the loss of another child. So, Jeremiah chained Barnabas in a coffin hidden within a secret room of the family crypt. Willie stumbled on it by accident and released Barnabas. He hates what he is, Victoria. What that witch has forced him to become.”
“We both do,” Victoria whispered.
A dark and deep chuckle grew thick on the air to draw a gasp from Victoria’s throat. “That’s –“
No further words left her lips because air caught against a sudden blockage around her neck at the moment the world to her right exploded in a concussion of noise. Victoria feared for Julia and too for herself as the attack tightened more. Too close to the feel of the noose she once escaped. While Victoria struggled against her attack, the laughter once thick in the air condensed to the area behind her.
“You will not escape the death you richly deserve, witch!”
Shadows grew in her vision as her body endured violent spasms from the lack of air. Now, Victoria hoped Barnabas would come to her faster than before. He saved her from Trask once before, now the vampire alone might save her in either way Barnabas could. Weights tried to pull her upper eyelids down as another explosion erupted to her right. Muffled sound followed by a sense of calm dissolved the darkness along with Trask and his noose.
Sweet, storm scented, air flooded her nose and mouth when Victoria was able to draw in clear once more. Her body collapsed without control into strong arms. This was safe. Her rescuer held the young woman close as she wept in fear and pain. Her next inhale filled her sinuses with his scent. A scent which told Victoria the identity of her protector before the man ordered someone outside of they two.
“Check on Julia. I have her now. Don’t worry.”
Barnabas arrived in time and held her close to himself. A blink then Victoria let her body weigh him as darkness claimed her mind. Darkness exchanged for a beautiful spring or summer day warmed by the sun. Victoria noted she sat on a blanket near one of the places she and Barnabas walked before the rift swallowed her into the past.
Her belly was large and Victoria simply knew this was Barnabas’ baby growing within her. His nature she knew now lie irrelevant, given her unborn child. Victoria tried for a sense of confusion about how she became with child by him. Rather, her life radiated peace and contentment because the young woman had a place she called her home.
More so when he sat a plate beside her before the man sat so Victoria cuddle against his chest. His arms and hands wrapped around her waist to rub over their unborn baby. This she knew they did without fail. But how had she forgotten the days before this?
“You are thinking too hard, my beloved.”
“And you know me too well.”
Barnabas chuckled. “Have I told you recently I am grateful you granted all of this to me?”
“Not today, unless your question counts?”
“You know it does not, my wife.”
His wife? Yes … they were married and had a baby on the way. “Then no.”
“Thank you, Victoria, for trusting me when we both needed that faith most. Thank you for accepting me. And thank you for our family.”
He combined with her hormones to make her eyes water each time he grew so sappy. “Thank you for trusting me when you held no faith in yourself. For helping to bring David and me home. And for the most wonderful kids imaginable.”
Cued, or so Victoria imagined, three kids ran into existence. David, older to maybe a teenager and happy, chased two children in the field before the couple. His head and upper body was soaked! Unless Victoria misjudged, the boy and girl were about the age of Sarah at her death.
“I’m gonna get you brats!” David shouted in spite of his smile.
The girl led the trio and made Victoria near cry with how similar to Barnabas’ dead sister the child appeared. Her blond curls braided in pigtails on either side of her head. The boy made the pregnant woman wonder if he looked the same as her husband had in youth. Dark hair and eyes, his father’s smirk, thin, with quick wit. Teenage years they would have to watch this one.
“Pails or water balloons do you think?” Barnabas asked.
“With that amount of coverage, pails. Maybe two each.” Victoria chuckled then shifted.
Her movements alarmed Barnabas. “Are you okay?”
“Back’s sore and the baby decided to practice running. I think we have another prankster on the way.”
“Our David will be overwhelmed. No, sorry. I meant overjoyed.”
Victoria laughed. “He will be both as will we.”
“I am now,” Barnabas whispered before he nibbled on her neck.
She enjoyed the feel without a thought about his condition. One day she wanted this in life were this all a dream. Victoria moaned softly. “The kids will see us.”
“Tonight then?”
“As if I would tell you no with that sort of tease.”
Their shared laughter cut short at the screams of terror from their trio, deep in the trees. Barnabas helped Victoria stand, without argument about safety. Good, the man knew his wife by this time.
She chased after Barnabas at a slower pace because of the baby. He gained ground, but Victoria refused to wait to learn what happened to her children. Up a portion of the path near the top of Widow’s Hill, Victoria felt a hit from nowhere ram her off the path until she fell from the cliff. Her back hurt more as her hand made purchase with a jagged outcrop of stone. Above her was her husband in fear.
“Hold on, Victoria! I’m coming!”
So focused on her, Barnabas did not see the attack behind him. His wife did see. “Barnabas! Behind you!”
A bat too large for her to classify as normal latched onto his throat and Victoria knew he was turned back into a vampire before the man hit the ground and the day dove into sudden night.
“No!” She screamed for his life rather than hers when the stone gave way and she fell again.
The confusion woven logic of a nightmare gave time for so much but nothing in the same drop. To her left, Victoria saw Josette. Her lost friend fell with the pregnant woman to their deaths. Dear and near a sister to her, Josette’s face appeared broken from her suicide with rips to the flesh from the jagged rocks that waited to embrace the pair below.
“So too are you dear to me, Victoria. He who we love needs what we alone might grant. I tried, but Angelique corrupted my mind against our love. You now can turn the fates to life rather than death.”
“I don’t know how to!”
“Do not fear him, for he is still our love within. Our love from our hearts can set the true man within free! Trust him most when he holds no faith in himself!”
Victoria wanted the question answered. “Are we the same soul?”
“Souls are free but only within dreams.”
Victoria gasped until her chest gave a coughing fit long and harsh until the act left her tender throat sore. She knew this was real life with the pain. She learned this next when her hand rested against her flat tummy void of the baby Barnabas gave her in the dream.
More of importance, Barnabas still held her in his arms. He remained with her after how she reacted to what he was. Trust him when he has no faith in himself? Love from her heart. Well, Angelique had messed with the Collins family for too long.
His hand brought a glass with a bendy straw to her from the bedside table. “Here, Julia said for you to take small sips from the straw.”
Small as Victoria managed still hurt in her mouth’s pulls then the battle to swallow. Yet, she obeyed her love until the pain grew too intense. After he set the glass back, Barnabas wrapped his arms around her again. They sat in the silence a couple enjoys after they merge together for long and in the right ways. Words sang in touches and presence. His strength with her acceptance.
The vampire had her body covered with a blanket, one Victoria remembered. She created the piece, her first, for Sarah centuries before. A comfort as her mind returned to a sleep void of dreams and full of priceless memories. Games, lessons, songs, so much yet the span of time with Sarah and Daniel went too fast.