Series 4 Chapter 3: THE OTHER PATIENT

The sun slipped beneath the clouds calmly taking its place lower and lower in the sky paving the way for a starry sky to come forward over the town of Collinsport. The sea was calm, yet crashed fiercely against the cliff side of Widow's Hill, calling out to all who could hear.

Standing in a window, just off in the distance at the old house was Barnabas Collins, now reigning over his childhood home of 3 centuries alone. Now the only one of his kind. His plan to rid Collinwood of Leopold Divernet had worked, he felt calm, collected and even content.

"The sky seems to go on forever, doesn't it father?" Claudia said from the foyer leading into the main parlor of the old house where Barnabas stood.

"Claudia! How good of you to come see me, please come in, come in." Barnabas answered. "I can't imagine a sky more beautiful." He said as he sat down on one of the chairs.

"You're oddly in a good mood. This wouldn't happen to be because you're free of Leopold's ever present glare now that he's dead and all." Claudia said sarcastically.

"Now, now, what kind of man would I be if I started to speak ill of the dead." Barnabas quipped back with a Cheshire-cat grin.

"You'd be the man who had him killed." Claudia said with just as devilish a grin as her father.

Barnabas just smirked uncomfortably.

Besides their friendly back and fourth over Leopold's demise, Claudia felt a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. After all, she knew that Kimberly's tests had revealed that not enough blood from Leopold's body entered into Christopher's system; in realty only half of Barnabas' promised plan worked....the part the suited him. That rubbed Claudia the wrong way. She felt Christopher was left out to dry.

Then there was also the subject of how Kim planned on getting blood from Barnabas to help cure Chris. A plan Claudia didn't feel comfortable keeping from her father Barnabas, and equally didn't feel comfortable telling him.

"I'm sensing something off putting about you this evening, Claudia. What is it?" Barnabas asked as he poured himself a cup of what looked to be red wine.

"It's been a very trying week. I'm just very tired." Claudia answered quietly, noticing the wine flowing into Barnabas' glass seemed thicker in texture, and of course, wasn't really wine.

"No, there's something more. Something you're not telling me. What is it?" Barnabas asked suspiciously as he sipped the red liquid from the glass.

"You know I often think about what I've done. I think about how I turned Jack Thorne into Leopold, trying to recreate something from my past. And for what? The past is over. I think of going back and finding you choking on the floor when you killed my mother....and then saving your life to bring you to this time. I think I should never have done that." Claudia said bluntly.

Barnabas' face stayed stone cold, no emotion, no reaction. He got up and walked over to an empty fire place and looked inside and with a snap of his fingers a raging fire lit inside the fire place glowing hot with an exuding an orange light all around him and his daughter Claudia.

"That's a pity. You know, you're much more like me then you realize Claudia. You're feeling guilt, and guilt is a very mortal emotion. What you don't see is that for some reason our paths crossed again after everything that has happened over time, and for that, you and I should be thankful." Barnabas said turning his back to the fire and facing his daughter.

"Everything just feels so uncertain now. I've never felt this way...I've always had my powers to surround me and protect me and without them I can't seem to make sense of things." Claudia confessed.

"The mortal life is a daunting on, but doubt too can bring you to the brink of madness. Whatever happens from now on, will be left up to the fiats." Barnabas said as he kissed his daughters cheek and walked back over to the window to look at the brilliant night sky.

Claudia for a moment felt again that she needed to tell Barnabas that if Kim could not gather enough blood from him during one of their sessions Chris would take matters into his own hands and possible kill him just as he did Leopold. She was torn between the father she was just getting to know and the man she was falling in love with. A truly terrible place to be.

Claudia got up and walked over to Barnabas at the window gazing out to the dark of the night. She could see herself in his eyes, but there was something about him that was still very secretive and mysterious, something even human.

"What was it like to live here as a child?" She asked him.

"Collinwood was like a magic fairly land when I first came here. My father build this exact house almost 400 years ago. It was his masterpiece. That was all before everything changed." Barnabas said with a slight deepening of his voice.

"What changed?" Claudia asked.

"When my sister Sarah died, our word here at Collinwood turned dark. There was no more laughter. No more loving. No more happiness. It was the first curse of our family, the true beginning of the end." Barnabas explained.

"And then?" Claudia prodded,

"The rest is history Claudia. Everyone who has ever lived here has bore the brunt of these curses...Sarah was first; it has never been lifted. Everyone we have ever come in contact with, friends, neighbors, lovers, have all been effected." Barnabas continued.

"Lovers...have you been able to love?" Claudia asked.

"I have, though, it's been a painful experience for the most part. But it's special while it lasts. Are you asking me because you feel like you are falling in love with Christopher?" Barnabas asked pointedly.

"I don't know if I'm capable of love. Once I believed I was in love, but ......tragedy struck. Which led me to where I am today." Claudia said, glossing over the fact that the real Leopold Divernet killed himself over 100 years ago when he discovered his fiance Claudia was a witch.

"Love has a way of gripping us by the throat whether we want it to or not, and now, you're mortal. You're powers are all gone. Now you can actually feel love in its true are rarest form. In a way, I am envious of you." Barnabas said.

"So you believe that Christopher and I can make a life for ourselves?" Claudia questioned.

"Let nothing stand in your way." Barnabas said as he turned away from Claudia again to look out onto the starry Collinsport sky.

Claudia smiled and kissed her father on the side of his cheek and walked out of the Old house leaving Barnabas with a faint smile on his face. He was happy with the direction their relationship was going but he knew she was hiding something. It wasn't just his fatherly instincts either. He could feel it in her body language, in her blood flow, and in her heartbeat.

As she walked back to the main house through the foggy courtyard she knew that something was standing in her way of living a normal life with Christopher like she so wanted. It was Barnabas. She needed enough blood from him to cure Chris in hopes to make him normal again too, and she wasn't sure Kimberly would be able to do it on her own.

Barnabas watched as his daughter made her way from the old house to the main house in the dark of the night. And as she crossed through the courtyard that separated the two mansions, he went over to an closet he kept locked. He pulled a key out of a secret door and opened the closet where a large painting of a woman, her face kind, the grin she expressed warm.

"Love.......it had a strange effects on us, didn't it?" Barnabas said to the painting as he started deep into the woman's brown eyes. "And yet, I feel those effects never really went away, my sweet sweet Maggie." He added noting the painting was of his lost love Maggie Evans, the woman he once beleived was the reincarnated soul of his first true love, Josette.

But that was 50 years ago. As for Josette, her life was taken away over 3 centuries ago, in a similiar way that the original Leopold passed: a victim of the painful darkness that surrounded Widow's Hill. 

Barnabas just stared at the painting that brought him so much joy and memories of two women he loved and held so dear.

****

As the night got later Caleb and Kat finally returned home from visit to Bangor to search for David at the Windcliff Sanitarium. They were both talking to each other a mile a minute making noise as they walked in. Their entire demeanor were filled with energy of what they saw and what possible could be the out come.

The noise caused Carolyn to come out of her room and walk down the hallway to the end of the staircase to see what the fuss was all about.

"It's like the two of you have seen some kind of ghost! What's the matter?" Carolyn said carefully coming down the stairs in a fashionable white pant suit.

"You'll never believe whats happened. I think we found my father!" Caleb said excitedly.

"What?? Oh my god! Come on, come into the drawing room!" Carolyn said equally as excited as Caleb as she ushered the two into the main drawing room where Alex was reading. "This is amazing. Just the other day I felt like I had a dream where my mother told me David was alive!" Carolyn added, not realizing that it actually wasn't a dream.

"Whats going on?" Alex said putting down her book.

"Caleb and Kat found David!" Carolyn answered with a smile.

"How!?" Alex asked.

"Kat had this great idea, she asked me to give her a letter my father sent me 10 years ago and we zeroed in on a zip code in Bangor. What's really strange is that that zip was from inside this mental hospital." Caleb explained.

"Your father was in a mental hospital?" Carolyn asked surprised.

"It looks that way. What's even stranger, is that we think he's still there. The woman running the place wasn't exactly fourth coming on information about where David might be today. It leads us to believe he's till there." Kat explained like the true detective she was. "I'm going to call Loomis at the station and see what kind of background he can give me about this Dr. Grayson person." Kat added as she dashed off to the nearest phone.

"Oh Caleb, I'm so happy for you. I'm  happy for all of us. Finally some good news. But what in the world would David be doing in this mental hospital?" Carolyn asked confused.

"I don't know. The last time I spoke with him in person was when he sent me to visit you over Christmas break, just before he went missing. Do you remember?" Caleb asked as he sat down next to Alex on the sofa.

"I do. God, 20 years have gone by since then. I can't believe this is really the first time we're hearing anything about him in 20 years." Carolyn said also sitting down but across from Alex and Caleb in a big fluffy chair.

"Another thing, while we were leaving, a woman grabbed my arm and said that my dad was there. ...she actually said he was there! So now we know for sure that my dad is alive and at this hospital. We just have to figure out how we can get the doctor to let us see him!" Caleb said.

"Your dad? Where's your dad?" Kimberly asked as she walked into the room.

"Mom, you'll never believe this. Kat and I think we've found dad in some hospital. It's in Bangor and---" an excited Caleb explained as he was interrupted by Kim

"--Caleb what are you doing looking for your father? If he wanted to be found, we would have by now, don't you think? You shouldn't have gone after him." Kimberly said to a shocked room.

"What? What are you talking about? This is great news!" Caleb said surprised at his mother's reactions.

"I just don't understand why you felt like you had to go ....I don't know...snooping around. You're father left you alone, don't you remember that?" Kim said in a harsh tone.

"Yes, but not before you left him...and this entire family, Kimberly, for just about the same amount of time with your lover Victor. What are you trying to do here?" Carolyn said standing up now next to Caleb. "If David is at this hospital, we're going to get him out." She added.

Kimberly felt the temperament in the room change when Caleb, Alex and Carolyn were all staring at her with confused expressions trying to make sense of her reaction to the news that David had been, somewhat, found. She quickly tried to back peddle.

"If you're sure that you really want to find him, and he's in some kind of mental break down, then by all means Caleb, do what you'd like. I only want whats best for you. That's all I meant." Kimberly said.

"Kim when was the last time you saw David?" Alex asked.

"I don't remember. Probably when I left Collinsport." Kim answered.

"Left him for Victor!" Carolyn snapped, to Kimberly's displeasure.

"These last years have been a mix of tragedy and pain I just want you to be careful with what you find." Kim responded. "But listen, Caleb, again....Whatever makes you happy and whatever makes you feel most complete. I'm sure it'll all work out. I have a lot of work to do in the lab, let me know if you need anything. Ok?" She added as she stiffly hugged her son and quickly made her way out of site.

"That was bizarre." Alex noted.

"Yes, she's never had a very good poker face, that Kim. What do you think that was all about?" Carolyn asked Caleb.

Caleb's face looked heartbroken. All he ever wanted was his family back together in one form or another. It always seemed like either one parent was missing or both all his life and now he had the chance at having both of them back at the same time and it didn't' feel as good as he expected. Especially given that his mother Kim's reaction was such a negative one.


"Maybe she's embarrassed or something. I don't know. I think after the divorce and after we all found about about her and Victor and Chris that maybe she would rather my dad not come back." Caleb said.

"This is where your father belongs. And I for one, am very happy he's been found. Caleb, whatever you do, bring him home. Bring him back to Collinwood!" Carolyn said giving Caleb a big, deep hug, giving him the support he always knew he could count on from her.

Just around a corner wall, Kimberly listened in on Carolyn and Caleb...panic set in. She quickly made her way down to her office. She stammered through her pockets frantically searching for her office keys, finally unlocking her office door.

The flicked on the dim office lights that created a warm inviting comfortable mood within her office, flattering the dark brown leather furniture and deep green drapery that hung like large oak trees in the corners of each side of the main wall.

She ran over to her desk chair where she had flung her lab coat over the back and quickly grabbed her cell phone from it's pocket. And there was the proof. A missed call from Dr. Joanna Grayson, and a voice mail explaining to Kim that David's whereabouts had been discovered.

Kim's panic turned to dread and she slumped down in her office chair and began to think of ways to get herself out of what was to come. A secret that she had been hiding for over 2 decades was very close to being raveled. All her work getting her two sons back, all her work getting back into Collinwood was at risk if this secret was to be exposed.

Kim knew she had no choice but to make sure it wouldn't.

****

At Windcliff Sanitarium in Bangor, Maine, David Collins sat on the floor of his tiny hospital room, the cold mettle from his bed frame pressed deeply into the skin on his back. It wasn't painful, but it gave him the only kind of psychical sensation he had felt in years. Its what made him know he was still alive and not in some strange hell, frozen in time. 

He watched a small roach creep into his room from under the door and scurried across the floor under and into the mettle grate of a air duct. David crawled on all fours and looked into the air duct, and thought for a second that if he could pry the grate of he could shimmy into the airways of Windcliff to freedom. But that was a fruitless fantasy. The space was too small for David's large framed body. His shoulders were too wide and strong to squeeze into the small opening he would make. 

David took a deep breath and exhaled. There had to be away for him to escape. 

As he toiled away processing what had happened to him over the years, and how Dr. Grayson had forced him to go over some of the terrifying things that happened to him as a child, over and over again in his mind. He remembered how she almost found pleasure in the terrible things he was talking about, how she almost found delight in the descriptions of ghosts and spirits and mysterious activity he was surrounded by all his life. 

The painful memories of his childhood were only warmed by the thoughts of his son Caleb, and his wife Kimberly. Unfortunately for David, those warm memories of his small family were clouded too. How soon he forgot about Kimberly's extra marital affair, and how she left Caleb and him alone at Collinwood all those years ago. 

Going through his past David started to try to piece together how he even got to Windcliff in the first place. He remembered being at home one night, Caleb was away at school, Kimberly had been gone for at least 5 years. He remembered a break in, fighting with two men. One man seemed familiar. He swore he knew at least one of the faces of the men who broke in and attacked him, but couldn't remember from where.

The fight during the break in ended quickly, as the other man who broke in stuck David with a needle filled with some sort of tranquilizer. The next thing David remembered he was at Windclff. And the rest is history. 20 years of locked away history. 

As David reminisced his anger over started to bubble up, he was angry because he couldn't fight off the two men who broke into Collinwood that night. He was angry because it took him 20 years to get a clear head and to finally have this break through and now he sat in a darkened hospital room with no freedom inside.

Then his door knob began to jiggle, but the lights in Joanna's office that adjoined David's room were off, it was the middle of the night and no one should have been there. David stood up and stuck out his chest believing that it could be Sebastian coming to check on him, David was ready to pounce on him.

The jiggling continued. But no one gained entrance. 

David soon realized that if this person trying to get into the room was Sebastian he would  have had a key, and would have entered much faster. He relaxed his body and stood down and waited. The person on the other side of the door was clearly trying to break into his room. He remained silent. And waited.

It took what seemed like forever to get the lock on David's door to open, but finally, after half an hour there was success. David braced himself for a fight or some kind of attack, for he had no idea what awaited him. And as the door opened, a small little woman in a bath robe with the initials M.E. on the lapel stood there. With a very kind, warm grin.

"Hello David." The woman said in a whisper. 

"What are you doing?" David said to the woman.

"When I found out you were here too, I knew that one day I would have to help you out of here. I knew that one day we'd have to wait for this day....your son was here David. We have to get you home." The woman said.

David looked at the woman who was now standing aside, giving David a clear passage into Joanna's office and out into the hall past the office door that the woman had also broken into.

"Who are you? I feel like I know you from somewhere." David said, seeing something familiar in the woman's face.

"Oh David.....it's been so many years. So many lost years. You've already forgot me. I don't blame you, you were so young the last time we saw each other. David, It's me. I'm Maggie Evans!"