Series 7/Chapter 5: FROM THE ASHES

It quiet mid-morning day, the business of a hospital crowded the mind of newly arrived chief of staff at Windcliff Sanitarium Dr. Siobhan Morgan who arrived the night before from Singapore. Her schedule was a busy one, she had already met with many of the hospital's staffers, even some who worked with her mother, Julia Hoffman, years ago at this same hospital. But one visitor in-particular struck her interest on a whole different level.

David Collins had made an appointment to see the newest attending doctor because of headaches he was having. His mind would often run off to dark places when those headaches arose, similarly to when he was a patient at Windcliff under the cruel care of Siobhan's predecessor Dr. Joanna Grayson.

"Doctor, Mr. Collins is here." A nurse said opening the door to Siobhan's office.

"Oh thank you, send him in." the doctor responded.  "Mr. Collins! Thank you for coming in on my first day. I know it's been probably hectic getting in to see someone." She said as David made his way into the office.

"I'm just glad some one is here that isn't Joanna Grayson." David said with a sharp tone in his voice and shaking Siobhan's extended hand.

"What is it that I can help you with? I read over your file and frankly there are a lot of things I have questions about." Siobhan asked.

"Mainly my headaches, I haven't really told anyone, but they've recently become more and more frequent. I'd say, maybe in the last two weeks or so." David explained.

"Oh? Has anything changed in your life? At home? Added stresses? It says in your file that you were placed at this hospital due to a nervous break down after a divorce." She said.

"Well, I wouldn't go with what's in my file as fact. I mean, I did have a divorce but I didn't have a break down. It's a long story involving my ex wife and Dr. Joanna Grayson who happen to be sisters." David explained.

"Sisters?" Siobhan asked in surprise.

"Like I said, it's a long story, and you wouldn't believe me even if I told you every strange and sorted detail." David grinned as his mind quickly raced through his kidnapping at his ex-wife Kimberly's request and false circumstances he was locked away under while at Windcliff.

"So, aside from that," Siobhan said with a laugh, "what other stress related things could be bringing on these headaches?"

"I don't know. Nothing really. We have a new baby in the house, and a new house guest. But I can't say she's really any added stress." David said confused.

"And this house guest, have you had much contact with her? Do you feel any anxiety about her?" The doctor asked.

"Well she's been ill. She's had a fever when she arrived and just the other day she passed out in the baby's nursery." David explained.

"Hmm..." Dr. Morgan thought. "Sometimes headaches can be caused but added or new stresses to our lives especially if there's something out of the ordinary happening and we're not ready to deal with it. Also if something is familiar but suddenly changes to something unfamiliar we can unknowingly stress and become ill. The change in your environment, the people you're around could be the cause of your headaches." She added.

"I live in a large house there are people coming and going all the time. I don't see how one person can cause such an upset." David said noting in his mind just how pretty his doctor was.

"Like I said Mr. Collins..." Siobhan started before David interrupted her.

"David, you can call me David."

"Right, David," She said noticing him flirt a little, "Like I said, a lot of times this is all unconscious, and you don't really know your mind or body is stressed. Tell me, have you ever had these headaches before?"

"No, not to my.........actually yes. I did. But years and years ago. When my parents were having some issues of their own. My mother, for a while, when I was a child would come in and out of my life. The times she would come back, I would get headaches like this." David said realizing.

"She would come and upset your normal environment, causing you to have some anxiety." Dr. Siobhan Morgan reiterated.

"I guess so, that could be it." David noted. "But like I said, we have people coming in and out of Collinwood all the time, I only got these headaches when my mother would cause problems."

"Well, either way, I can prescribe you some medication that might help, and maybe keeping you from work a few days will relax you. Can you take a few days off from the Fishing business?" Siobhan asked she wrote out a prescription for David.

"How did you know I worked in the fishing business?" David said smiling as he took Siobhan's slip.

"Mr. Collins, I have more connections in town than you realize. Besides, the town is named after your family, I would have guessed anyway." Siobhan smiled back.

"Thank you for this." David said as he got up to leave but then turned around to look back at the doctor who had sat back in her chair. The bright mid-day sun shining in her hair dark hair, her blue eyes twinkling like little diamonds.  "You know, if you'r not too busy, maybe we can have dinner some time. Outside of this....whole place." David added looking around the office.

"You're asking your doctor on a date Mr. Collins? I don't know if that's very ethical." Siobhan said blushing.

David, who was handsome, rugged and tall fired back a half smile that gave Siobhan tingles.

"Well, then you're fired. Here." David said ripping off a corner of his superscription and handing it to Siobhan. "Write down your phone number." He added.

Siobhan hesitated for a second even after she grabbed her pen to write.

"Go on, you're not my doctor anymore. I'll find someone else." He said

Siobhan smiled and wrote down  her number and gave it to David. He folded it and put it in his pocked then said good bye. She sat back in her chair smiling and feeling freer than she had ever felt in her life in that very moment.

She was in a new town, a new place, and a new life was about to start for her. This was her time to shine.

****

At the mansion Sebastian was coming down the stairs after visiting with his sister and her infant son Canan. He walked briskly past the front entrance to the drawing room and swiftly grabbed his coat off the top of a side table in the foyer.

"Sebastian." a woman's voice called from the drawing room.

Not recognizing the voice, Sebastian furrowed his brow and curiously walked into the drawing room where Anna was standing. He was struck by her beauty. Her skin perfect and seemed to glow, her eyes sparkled a bright sea blue, her hair pulled back. And she still clutched the locket that dangled around her neck.

"I'm sorry have we met?" Sebastian asked as she carefully walked into the drawing room.

"No, I'm sorry, I heard David and Caleb talking to you earlier, my name is Anna. I'm Carolyn's goddaughter." She smiled, extending her hand.

"Pleasure, I'm Kat's brother." He said introducing himself.

"What brings you by?" She asked, even though she had eavesdropped earlier and knew the answer.

"Just visiting the baby, it's the first time I've met him. He's adorable." Sebastian said noticing Anna take slowly steps towards him.

"I'm sorry, I just have to say, there's something about you that is familiar. I get this sense about you. What is it? What is it about you Sebastian?" Anna said clutching her locket tightly in her fist.

"I don't know. Maybe we have met some place. Can you remember if that's it? I lived in Bangor for a long time. Did you ever live there?" He answered, as Anna got only a foot away.

"No. Never been to Bangor. You know I'm very keen on these things. It's sort of a sixth sense. We're a lot alike. We both have something we're hiding, isn't that right? You have a secret. I could tell the moment I saw you." Anna said to a confused Sebastian.

"I don't have any secrets." Sebastian assured her.

"No, you do. I can feel it. Something right here." Anna said as she reached and touched his chest.

Sebastian stepped back, Anna's arm still extended towards Sebastian's chest. What did she know? How could she know? But Anna was right. They were very much a like and both harbored secrets. Sebastian's was the fact that he survived an attack by a werewolf thus creating him one as well, the scars on his chest the lasting evidence of his creation. But how could Anna know that?

"Who are you?" Sebastian said seeing that Anna was more than she lead on.

Anna smiled and turned herself away from Sebastian to pour herself a glass of water from the bar and as the water poured from the pitcher into the glass in her other hand it began to boil right in front of Sebastian, who's face froze in shock.

"What the hell..." he said as he came in for a closer look. "What are you?" he continued as the water in her glass boiled without burning her hand.

"I am the past and the present, and am the always and the forever. My name is Laura Murdoch Collins, trapped in this new body and only you can release me." Anna said her eyes know flickering like two fourth of July sparklers.

Sebastian turned to walk away but Anna lifted her free hand and made a fist locking Sebastian in place. She turned her wrist that simultaneously turned Sebastian's body around back to face her.

"What do you want from me? I have nothing to give you!" He said in a shaky voice.

"You'll give me my freedom." She hissed as she walked closer. "You're the one that has the thirst for flesh. I need you to bring me the souls of those you will kill. I need seven, seven souls to release me from this body, only you can do this Sebastian. Only you, with the blood of a liken rushing through your veins can do this." Anna explained as she lifted up the locket that was now glowing a deep green.

Anna pulled her locket from her neck and began to swing it back and fourth, like the pendulum from a grandfather clock, the green glow swirled deep into Sebastian's eyes like the mist of the sea rising around the black stones at the bottom of Widow's Hill. The locket swung back and fourth and back and fourth and Sebastian fell deeper into Anna's fire spell.

Then, as the spell locked on his mind, the locket instantly stopped and stood straight down.

"You will bring me the souls of seven, thus releasing me from Anna's body so that I may take my place back on this earth, the rightful way. A mother to my son David. You will do this." Anna said with Laura Collins soul locked in her body as it had been since her reincarnation.

"I will." Sebastian said in a sleepy voice.

"Good evening!" Carolyn said as she stepped off the steps of the main staircase as she came towards the drawing room.

Anna quickly snapped her fingers releasing Sebastian from his trans, but the curse was put in place.

"Sebastian, what a surprise. I wasn't aware you were back in town." Carolyn said smiling strangely as she too hid a secret, the secret the Sebastian's mother Maggie was alive and well.

"Uhhh yeah, I just got back, this week." he replied with a strange feeling in his head.

"And you've met my lovely goddaughter, I see." Carolyn said putting her arms around Anna. "How are you feeling honey?" Carolyn asked.

"Better, thank you Aunt Carolyn. Sebastian and I were just getting more acquainted." Anna replied now in  her normal voice.

"I should be off. Anna, it was a pleasure." Sebastian answered still feeling foggy and confused but not remembering he was put under a spell.

"I'll see you soon." Anna replied.

Sebastian smiled awkwardly and dashed off leaving Carolyn and Anna alone in the drawing room.

"What was that about? You'll 'see him soon'"? Carolyn said teasing Anna.

"Nothing, nothing, we were just getting to know each other but, I have a feeling he'll be around a lot more." Anna winked as she replaced Laura's locket of the phoenix around her neck.

****

The day pressed on and and a fresh spring breeze engulfed the upper hills if Collinsport and the Collinwood estate. A small black sedan with pitch black windows slowly pulled around the back drive way of the estate that encircled the old house and as it packed, a tall handsome man named Xander who had just been employed by his passenger got out of the car and stepped out of the drivers seat and walked over to open the back door. 

The back door of the sedan with the blacked out windows opened, slowly the 93 year old body of Barnabas Collins slowly crept out. Free from his curse now over 40 years thanks to his late wife Julia Hoffman and Dr. Lo of Singapore.

He had returned to Collinsport with his daughter with Julia, Siobhan, could start her work at Windcliff Sanitarium and also to return Julia's remains to the Collins family crypt at Eagle Hill Cemetary. But there was one stop he had to make after Julia's re-interment. He had to see The Old House once more.

"Would you like me to take you up to the front door Sir?" Barnabas' driver, Xander asked. 

"No, I'll be fine, thank you. I wont be long either. I just need to take a look one more time." Barnabas said as he slowly went up the main front staircase. 

Barnabas' time travels in 2016 had taken him to 1920 where Jamison Collins had replaced him in his coffin thus forcing Barnabas to repeat his timeline from 1920 to the present time, and although  it had been over 40 years since he had literally seen the inside of his beloved Old house, it felt like it had only been yesterday.

The interior of the house had been kept as he had changed it back in 2016. It was freshly painted. The walls a clean peach color. The drapes still in their immaculate state of ruby red with small golden tassels that hung from the corners. 

Barnabas walked into the front foyer, it even smelled the same. The large statute on the banister of the staricase was still sparkled as if it were brand new, and in the drawing room a large painting of himself in his younger, vampire self.

Oddly...the past was a live and well in the old house, more than Barnabas even knew.

He continued on his way through memory lane in the Old house and went into Josette's room, then another bedroom.  Barnabas had been pleased with how the house was being kept up, Carolyn must have kept everything this way expecting Barnabas to return from 1920, even though he was trapped there until the time lines re-connect in this very moment.

As Barnabas concluded his final walk though the house, he knew it was possibly the last time he would see it. He was 93 after all and had lived a very long life. His actual age more than 300 years old and he had seen at least 5 different variation of the Old house within those years that were filled with turmoil, tragedy and time traveling. His long lustrous and legendary life could end at any moment from his mortal old age.

There was one place he needed to see.

The basement, where his long time place of solidute had been. Where his coffin lay. Where he found peace during the day light hours to hide from the burning sun and the clarity of a clear sky. Once a creature of the dark, Barnabas could now see his lair in the day light.

He carefully and slowly made his way to the entrance of the basement and put his gloved hand on the door knob and twisted. The smell of the old wood and candles rushed to his face, it was a welcome scent that he had missed. He closed his eyes and took it all in than made his slow decent down into the basement, the glow of light from the floor above guiding him down step by step to find his old coffin and say goodbye.

The basement that he had used in the Old House for years to conceal his secret life was one that held bitter sweet memories. It was where Jason McGuire was murdered. It was the place where he held Maggie Winters prisoner. It was also the place where he found solace, and as he turned the corner from the bottom of the stairs he reached over to a table that had a candle and matches. He lit the candle and illuminated the main chamber of the basement and in the center was his black lacquered coffin. 

Barnabas walked over to it and ran his fingers over its smooth surface and over the grooves around the jagged corners. He smiled a strange sad and happy smile but knew it was time to say one last goodbye before he went back up stairs and left the Collinwood land forever. 

93 year old Barnabas placed his silver wolf headed cane down over a chair and placed both hands firmly on the top of the coffin and slowly lifted the coffin open releasing dust and air around his face. He turned away quickly to block his eyes from what was coming up, and suddenly a hand from inside the coffin reached out and grabbed Barnabas by the throat knocking and the candle to the floor extinguishing it's light. 

Barnabas struggled on the floor his eyes had not yet adjusted to the new darkness of the basement in the Old House. The person who was in the coffin was hissing and squeezing their hand so tight that their finger nails were digging into Barnabas' skin. Barnabas coughed, and choked and could not breath but then, the person began to recognize who this old man really was and released their grip around Barnabas' throat. 

"My god what time has done to you." The woman's voice said. 

Barnabas opened his eyes but the woman from the coffin was in silhouette and he could not see her face.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" He asked as he struggled to find the candle. 

"Have you already forgotten my voice? Well, I can imagine why, our time together was so short." The woman said, as she reached for the fallen candle then flicked her fingers magically lighting it. 

The light slowly started to glow closer and closer to her face and Barnabas could finally see who it really was. It was the woman he killed in 1920, Jacqueleen Welsh. Catherine Collins mother. 

She had attempted to seduce Barnabas so that he'd make love to her. Unknowingly seducing a vampire Jacqueleen paid the ultimate price of a vampire bite.

"No. It can't be!" Barnabas said struggling to get up from the ground.

"Oh but it is, dear Barnabas. Aren't you pleased to see your creation?" Jacqueleen said as she paced the floor of the basement. 

"How? How can you be alive?" Barnabas asked dusting his pants off.

"Funny thing, when you don't die from the bite, you life for a long time in a cold shallow grave in the forest. I never died you fool. You know all about that, don't you? You've lived for centuries, haven't you? And now you've cursed me to be the same as you." Jacqueleen said.

"Oh, Jacqueleen I...I'm sorry. I never believed that this would have happened to you. I thought..... I believed...." Barnabas said horrified of what occurred in 1920 before being interrupted by Jacqueleen. 

"You thought you killed me. You thought by just one bite it was curtains for me, but you'd be wrong. I lived, even survived that pathetic burial by you and Miss Winters. I came back here, digging myself free, to find you. But when I got here I didn't, so I've been waiting ever since." Jacqueleen explained.

"I've been cured Jacqueleen, I can help you become cured as well. I can help you get this changed. Look at me, you too can be free of this ailment and get break this curse. Please come with me later tonight to my daughter, she can help you." Barnabas said reaching for Jacqueleen's hands.

"Are you mad? Do you think I want to be cured? You're a fool Barnabas Collins! I don't know why you want to be free of all this. Immortal life.... this  is forever. Even though I'd rather have chosen to become this myself I can't say that I'm unhappy. It's all become so .....so perfect." Jacqueleen said hauntingly. 

"You can't mean that. There is no way this life is anything but cruel. You haven't yet had your first thirst have you. That must be it. The first thirst, the first kill, that's when you'll see what this is all about. The first time you have to take someones life so that you'r addiction can and own life force can be restored, that's when you'll know what this really is." Barnabas replied cynically. 

"That's what you'd like me to believe isn't it. But I don't. You may have decided that this was no longer what you want, but I know you miss it." Jacqueleen said stepping closer to Barnabas.

"Miss what? The loneliness? The living in the shadows? Never. I've lived all these years, since 1972 a free man from this curse and I have enjoyed every single moment." He replied definitely. 

"Look at yourself! Look at what you've aged to? You're shriveled and withered like a tree on it's last days, ripped of this ripe fruit and green leaves. Just stems. You're just stems of a human now!" Jacqueleen explained.

"But I'm human!" Barnabas equally exclaimed.

This infuriated Jacqueleen who's eyes turned red, she hissed a cruel sound, and jumped up into the air spreading her arms as if they were wings. While suspended in air, her fury became more evident as Barnabas stood his ground. She floated over to him, her fangs now prominent and showing, ready for her first taste of blood.

"Looks like you may become my very first taste, dear Barnabas, how would you like that?" Jacqueleen said through salivating mouth.

"Whatever you do, trust me, you will regret it." Barnabas said standing confidently in her way. 

Jacqueleen's anger began to boil over as she could see she could not shake Barnabas Collins, and from the left side of him, her hand slapping him across the face. The pain of her hand that felt like a weight crossing his cheek in a powerful swing to his face to one side, but Barnabas remained unfazed.

Jacqueleen then jumped on his body from the air, pulling him down to the ground. Her mouth open and ready to bite down on Barnabas' old neck. He was old but strong, but Jacqueleen was stronger. They struggled on the ground, rolling around over and over each other. Barnabas trying to keep her mouth away from his neck.

She finally stuck her fingers between his ribs and twisting causing Barnabas to scream in agony. And while he screamed a clearing for Jacqueleen to plant her fangs deep into Barnabas neck releasing a powerful red flow of his blood. 

But the blood in his veins had been the synthetic creation that Dr. Lo and Julia Hoffman had transplanted into Barnabas' veins in 1972 in Singapore. To Jacqueleen's taste buds it was like drinking gasoline. 

She chocked and released her grasp of Barnabas' throat and rolled off of him and coughed out the synthetic blood she had consumed.

"What have you done to yourself? What have you allowed them to do? You were a beautiful creature that had so much power...and now look at you. Just that withered tree with poison in your veins." Jacqueleen said to Barnabas who was now laying face down on the floor in silence.

Jacqueleen, noting that he was silent walked over to Barnabas and turned him over and saw something she had not expected.

Barnabas's old skin, his old, face, his white hair began to change. He was now becoming younger, this skin was tightening, his hair was changing from ice white to jet black. Jacqueleen's bite had began his transformation back to what he was before. 

Barnabas Collins had lived his life as a mortal since the 1972 transformation in Singapore and one giant mistake, a confrontation with a woman he believed died, testing her, causing her anger to boil over had no undone everything he had wished for. 

"What...................what have you done?" Barnabas said, his voice now sounding like his younger self.

"I've cured you, my love. I have cured you." Jacqueleen said as she knelt down next to Barnabas whos' neck wounds suddenly healed.

"Mr. Collins!? Mr. Collins!? Are you down here?" Xander said as he rushed down looking for his boss Barnabas. 

As Xander came down the stairs he saw Jacqueleen helping the now young Barnabas up from the ground. Xander's face turned white, his shock was written all over his body.

"Mr. Collins?" He questioned not understand how it could have been the same man he helped out of the car just an hour before.

Barnabas took deep breath and realized that Jacqueleen's bite had reversed everything. He was his old self again.

"Who are you?" Xander asked of Jacqueleen.

Jacqueleen turned to Barnabas who was still stunned himself of what had just occurred. She then turned back to Xander and said:

"Mrs. Jacquleen Welsh-Collins. Wife of Barnabas."