Series 13/Chapter 12: FAMILY TREES

The Stoddards: Paul, Elizabeth, Beau, Cameron, Carolyn

Two days of overcast and grey weather buried Collinsport in frothy sea mists that went from shore to town and back again and would soon break into a wild storm in the sky above. It was a typical early afternoon in the New England fishing village, but one woman would come face to face with an element of her past that she long thought missing, a missing link to her existence would reattach itself to her heart, and it had been under her nose the whole time.

It had been a few days since Cameron's run in with Evangeline when she escaped her capture in the basement of the Old House. Cameron had no memory of the encounter and was thoroughly engrossed in moving on with his life after Noelle's death. 

When he was finished packaging things from upstairs, he began to search the drawing room of the old house for items. The stroll through memory lane made an impact on him: for almost 20 years he had lived there with Noelle as she took care of Elizabeth in her old age. The home had been offered to them so that Noelle could come in and out of the main mansion and watch over Elizabeth with ease but also she could have her own space. 

Now that both Elizabeth and Noelle were gone, Cameron knew that any day now he'd be asked to leave the home. He was being proactive. The family didn't know he was one of them, and at this point he didn't know if he wanted to tell them--or even be a member of the family. 

There were countless little items left by his aunt, a woman he saw more of like a mother. Her reading glasses. Her little reminder notes for what she needed to bring the next day for Elizabeth. Her comfy slippers that sat by her favorite chair. 

It was a gut punching reality that he had to do this. Pack up her things. It was killing him inside. A painful and final chapter ---she was really never coming back.

Then, there was a knock at the door. 

Cameron first thought that it was Lucas coming back to plead forgiveness for going behind his back and working with Noelle to search the Mansion for evidence that they'd some how been responsible for his father's death. 

Cameron sighed, annoyed at Lucas' tenacity to come back into his good graces, and went over to the door ready to shoo him away for good. When he opened it, he was shocked to see who was standing in the cool air of the November day illuminated with the brightness of the gray sky behind her. 

His birth mother Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne. 

"Mrs. Thorne!" Cameron exclaimed. "...come in, come in." Cameron continued, shocked to see his mother standing before him.

She wasn't alone. The family lawyer, Webber Garner was with her.

"How are you Cameron?" She asked truly concerned for his wellbeing after Noelle's death.

"Better. Well, better than I expected to be I guess. I've been sleeping like a baby--oddly." Cameron replied, as he unknowingly was still sleeping off the memory erasing spell Claudia Bouchard placed on him just days before. 

"Sometimes when we're in mourning we sleep more. It's sort of a way of our bodies to block out the sadness. When my mother died earlier this month I was doing the same. I slept deep too." Carolyn added, lying to Cameron to make him feel he wasn't alone in his grief. 

"What can I do for you? If it's about leaving the house, I've already started packing my aunts things. I should be out in a day or two." Cameron said noting the quiet family lawyer. 

"Oh, no not at all. Please take your time. You were so kind to come and speak to me at my mother's grave that I thought it only right that I repay the kindness." Carolyn answered as she entered the drawing room

Memories of all her years there came flooding back. All the times she'd come and collect David when he was a child running around searching for Josette's ghost. All the times she'd come to see Barnabas when she still trusted him. When she still had no fear of who he really was.

The innocent times. The Innocent days. 

She turned as Webber walked in behind her and saw Barnabas' painting still hanging on the mantle above the fire place. 

"Oh." She said, swallowing hard.

"It's rather gaudy, I know." Cameron joked of the old painting not knowing its history. 

"He was very...put together in life." Carolyn said of Barnabas still shrouding him in mystery despite knowing his monstrous side. 

"You knew him? The real person?" Cameron asked.

"Yes." Carolyn said as she turned to Webber, trying to not get into the details of Barnabas Collins. 

Cameron, noticing Webber too expressed a strange look, wondering who the man was.

"Our family attorney, Webber, is here only to give you this. It's a signed check from Collins Co. It's so that you know that the money my mother left your aunt will be given to you as her heir. I've also added an extra amount there for you Cameron. I know how much it hurts to be alone now. I don't want you to feel alone. We want to be sure you're taking care of. It would really hurt me to think you felt as if we were just casting you off like this now that all this tragedy has occurred." Carolyn said.

"I just need you to sign here and I can make sure the rest is taken care of." Webber added.

Cameron wasn't in the mood to discuss business or any matters of money any further. He shook his head and signed the paperwork that would eventually, in a day or so, give him all access to the inheritance Elizabeth left Noelle and the extra amount of funds Carolyn signed over to him for his troubles. As Cameron flicked through the pages he saw the extra mount...an extra $300,000. It was a huge amount. 

"I can't accept that." Cameron said hesitating to sign the last page where he saw his portion of the money. "It feels like you're paying me off for some reason." Cameron replied. "Noelle's fall was an accident.......right?" He added

Carolyn sighed. "It was." 

Cameron looked at the woman he knew was his mother, she didn't know the truth. But he wanted to believe her. He wanted to hear what she was saying and for it all to be the truth, and in reality he just wanted all of it to end. He wanted to gather the rest of his things and move on and move away and leave his Collins family connection behind.

And so...he signed the papers giving him Noelle's inheritance from Elizabeth and Carolyn's extra amount.

"There." Cameron replied underlining his name in the final signature box. 

Carolyn smiled warmly. "Your aunt was a very important part of my mother's life and we want to be sure you're taking care of too. I'm sure that both amounts will help you on whatever path you choose." Carolyn replied. 

Cameron was still in no mood to argue. Webber grabbed the signed paperwork and folded it into his briefcase. 

"I'll have everything arranged." Webber then excused himself from the room and exited the Old House leaving Cameron and Carolyn alone.

Carolyn looked around the old house again for what seemed like hours but its as only a few minutes. She smiled at seeing some of the other decorations from Barnabas' time had survived all the years she had been away. She looked up again at the painting above the fire place. She shook  her head at his painted smirk.

 He still stood looking over everyone no matter what. He was there. Always watching. Always staring down keeping a very hungry eye on the family he so loved and at the same time haunted. 

"So? What was he like?" Cameron asked packing a small bag and noticing Carolyn staring at Barnabas. 

She turned to Cameron and smiled. "Complicated. Loving. Loyal..." she giggled. "Diabolical too."

Cameron smiled as he zipped the bag up. "No, not the man in the painting. My father. What was my father like?" 

Carolyn's face changed. Her heart skipped a beat. She began to feel her insides fill with butterflies because  she knew it the day she spoke with Cameron at the cemetery that something about him made her feel different. Protective even. Something in her body felt that she knew his face but in a different form, that his eyes were eyes she had seen and his hands were hands that she had held. 

But in a different time. In a different way.

"Your father?" Carolyn replied trying to push Cameron to tell her what she had already began to feel.

"My father was Beau. I know that you knew him, my aunt told me you two were friendly back in the day." Cameron paused unsure of how to finish his reveal that he, was who he was....her son, instead blurred the lines of truth in the story. 

"Cameron I..." Carolyn said interrupting. 

"What was he like?" Cameron asked again.

"He was beautiful. Everything about your father was beautiful. He was smart. And funny. And ….I loved him." Carolyn admitted.

"You loved him." Cameron repeated just so he could hear it again.

"I truly did. Everything about him I loved. But in those years things were different. It was stupidly different, I admit, but the two of us had to follow rules; rules neither of us wanted to acknowledge but we had to. Society is a messy place, Cameron. I know that you know personally how hard things are to finally be yourself in a world that only wants to tare you down. Your father and I loved each other, we truly did. But in the end we couldn't be together. One way or another." Carolyn said drawing the true parallel between her fight to love Beau in public rather than in secret for being an interracial couple in the 1960's and Cameron's plight to be who he really was, out and proud in the 1990s. 

"Do you know how Aunt Noelle came to be my guardian?" Cameron asked, testing Carolyn's knowledge and finally dropping a big hint of his identity. 

Carolyn lifted an eye brow. She looked deep into his eyes. They were shaped like hers. They were her eyes looking back at her. The shape of his lips too. They were hers. She was seeing herself in Cameron. The hints were undeniable and she knew where his questioned were going. 

This man, who was exactly the same age as the son she had with Beau and gave up for adoption would have been had she raised him herself. Then it came out....it came out of her mouth, like a light brightening the darkest room. 

"Is it you? Are you who I think you are?" She added.

Cameron only looked at her as she began to connect the dots one by one. He decided to help.

"I was born in London in late 1966. My birth mother gave me up for adoption because she couldn't take care of me. My aunt, Noelle, found me. She adopted me herself. She told me, for years, that my father had died and that my mother had died. But it was all lie. Well, part of it. My mother had not died. She is living. She'd been in London all this time, and in fact, I was raised right where she had been raised. Its a messed up turn of fait, isn't it? We're sort of like all fighting to find ourselves and in reality here were facing each other. After all this time. All this lost time." Cameron said as Carolyn began to sob in front of him realizing he was her long lost son.

"I .... I don't know what to say." Carolyn said through a flush of tears. 

Cameron walked over to her and grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Too much had happened. Too many deaths. Too many painful things were floating around them like ghosts, like banshee's screaming at the top of their lungs. There was a clear push and pull within the energy of the room. The good energy only wanted these two to to reunite, the bad wanted them to further the strain of a fractured and secret family. 

Cameron smiled at her, showing her the good energy was winning---for now.

"It's ok. It's really ok. Ive had a wonderful life. Noelle really took care of me and raised me well. I just wish things were different. I wish that maybe I could have gotten to know Elizabeth better, or David or anyone really. You too. But, I can't complain. Life does that you know, it gives you what you can handle and nothing more. This was the way we were meant to connect." He said as she released a gasp of air from her lungs in relief and grabbed hold of him. Her son. Her beautiful long lost son. 

"My son....my son!" She said still sobbing.

"So, what now?" He joked.

Carolyn pulled back from her boy, her mascara smeared all over her eyes and cheeks.  

"I have to go back to London. You have a little sister there. You would love her. She would love you.  I have to go back but....Cameron you have to understand I can't come back here again. Aside from my mother and Noelle's passing, things have gone horribly wrong with David. I can't be here. Its too much for me. Its just too much...." she paused. "You can come with me. Come with me!" She yelped.

"And what? Live in London?" Cameron asked astonished at her idea. He knew it was too soon for all of them to just act like a happy family.

"You could!!" She said.

He shook his head no. 

Carolyn, now seeing a second chance to be with the boy she gave up saw this as a start of a wonderful reunion. A relationship that she had been dreaming of since his birth. 

The topic of David however would cause her to do what she hated most. Lie.  To protect David---again.

"You mentioned something is  horribly wrong with David. What's happened with him?" 

Carolyn sniffled and began to backtrack. Noelle's death was supposed to be an accident. David's involvement had to be kept secret. 

"He's ill. Very ill." She replied glossing over David's mental recklessness. 

"I'm sorry to hear that." Cameron said softly, seeing just how stressed his mother was.

Carolyn smiled at him sweetly, satisfied that he didn't prod any further into David. Then she looked her son in the eyes and then he knew, she was never coming back. This was it. Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne, his birth mother, had no plans of ever returning to Collinsport. 

As the two embraced one more time, Lucas had arrived to try and warm things over with his boyfriend Cameron. He had been watching the whole time. He had been listening the whole time.

He didn't interrupt. But he did plot. 

The sound of Carolyn's saying she was returning to London made him grin ear-to-ear. He quickly went back to his car and drove off. He had new plans.  New plans for his own life. 

Carolyn and Cameron at the Old House

****

At Windcliff, David sees a familiar face

The halls of a hospital 40 minutes away from Collinsport smelled of old furniture. It was the smell of mold and mildew, the smell of unwashed sheets and stale food. This was Windcliff. It had changed over the years. It wasn't the same hospital Julia Hoffman once worked herself to the bone in. It wasn't the same hospital she gave all her she knew and all she had in her.

Over the years, Windcliff was left to decay in the hallowed out building that looked more like a skeleton of it's former self than a functioning hospital for the mental disturbed.

The Chief of Staff, Dr. Joanna Grayson, could care less. She had another pay check coming her way all this time. A paycheck that linked her to The Organization of the True Hearted. A paycheck that would insure David Collins stayed put until his ultimate death.

As David was wheeled into the common area of the hospital he struggled in his chair. The meds he had been fed kept him loopy and confused, angry and volatile, the straight jacket that kept him snug in his space was proof of his wild outburst.

As he tried to get himself free, a feat he'd never achieve, a woman sitting in the back of the common room noticed him come in. She was sitting at a table pasting photos and shapes that had been cut for her by a nurse onto a large white poster board and David's entrance made a huge commotion in the room.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Screamed a bald overweight man in a hospital gown and slippers from his table at David.

David, his face showing his exhaustion snarled back.

"Devils Devils Devils Devils Devils." Murmured another woman playing with a doll as David passed her.

"Alright sit here for a bit. Enjoy the light." The orderly pushing David said leaving him in his straightjacket and chair in the light of the widows.

"Devils Devils Devils Devils everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere." The woman with the doll kept saying.

The first woman who was pasting the photos, looked at David again now that he was in the sunlight in the window.

She knew him.

She knew that face.

She had been at Windcliff since 1985. She had been hiding. Hiding herself. Hiding from her past. Hiding from a man who was crazy and hiding from all the things that made her frightened. She had been there before, many years before. As a young woman after she had been kidnapped. The hospital, Windcliff, made her feel this uneasy peace and safety even though inside those walls lives the volatile world of the insane. And yet....she felt safe there. 

It had been years since she recognized someone, but this face, David's face, changed that. It was almost like her eyes were playing tricks on her. She hadn't seen him since he was in his teens. After she disappeared. No one knew she  was hiding there. No one. Not even the man she was hiding from.

The mysterious women walked over from her task of pasting the photos and stepped into the window's light where David was sitting tied up in his straightjacket. She knelt down to get a better look at this face.

He was groggy. Drugged. He wasn't seeing clearly but he opened his eyes to see this face. 

"Fancy seeing you here." She said to him with a calm wink. 

David, his eyes seeing a blurry figure in front him that had quadrupled because of the medication he was taking couldn't make heads or tails of who it was, but he recognized her too. But a name didn't click. Nothing clicked.

"Help me." he whispered to the familiar stranger. 

She smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder. 

"I guess it all got to you too honey. It was only a matter of time I guess. David?" the woman asked trying to get him to look at her. "David?" She said again trying to get his attention.

But he was just a drooling into his own medicated psychosis. He kept shaking, trying to get his way free of the straightjacket. He began to violently thrust his arms attempting to release them. He was shaking. Pulling. Shaking again.

"HEY! Get away from him! Back up!" An ordinary screamed at the woman.

"I wasn't doing anything." She said. 

"Yeah sure you weren't. You're never doing anything. Back the hell up!" The cruel orderly shouted as the woman.

As she turned to walk back to her project, David looked up from his scrunched position in the wheel chair.

He saw her face clearly, but the medication began to blur his mind again. He managed to whisper "Maggie? Is that you?" to the woman.

She smiled a bright grin at him surprised at the name he called her, just as the Orderly pulled his chair back and started to move it to anther part of the room.

"Hey kiddo." She said softly but no ne heard. 

"GET BACK ROSENBERG!" the orderly shouted at the woman calling her a different name.

David, still groggy looked at the woman called Rosenberg confused. It was Maggie Evan's face. He could see it clearly. But the name. Rosenberg? As David's chair was wheeled off, he kept looking back and the blurry figure he swore in his mind was Maggie Evans who had supposedly died 10 years earlier.

David whispered again "Maggie." 

****

Victor and Kim in the Court-Yard

The next day the bubbling fountain in Collinwood's court yard dribbled and dripped in and out of tempo as Kimberly stroked her pregnant tummy and walked around the garden of autumn shrubs and plants. She had been feeling sick most of the morning and Carolyn had given her the idea of strolling around the outdoors to get some fresh air.

She hugged herself to keep the fall air from cooling her warm body ad adjusted the scarf around her neck. She took in a deep breath of fresh sea air from the courtyard, and when she opened up her eyes, Victor Reed was standing in front of her.

She gasped in fright as she did not hear him enter in through the locked gate.

"What are you doing here? Carolyn is home! She could see you." Kimberly said, her stomach feeling heavy and watery.

Victor lifted a suitcase up to his chest and patted it. "I've brought you something. It came from the Chancellor herself." Victor said.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Its something that will finally do what we've been talking about for months now. Its the one-stop-shop, tool to answers all your questions on how to finally rid the world of the vermin Collins family. The Chancellor has become inpatient so she' send this package along to me to give to you. Kim, this our ticket to freedom, all of us; this town, this world. It's a gift." Victor said, his eyes wide and some what frightening as he had been so brain washed by The OTH that he was too lost to bring back. And he wanted to take Kim to that spot too.

"Listen, Victor," the very pregnant Kimberly began. "I'm not feeling to well today and Carolyn is home I don't want to stir up trouble so close to David's departure to Windcliff. It's been a whirlwind these last few weeks, can't we just wait until the baby is born to start all this again?" Kimberly asked as she brought Victor to a hidden part of the courtyard under the shadows of various trees. 

"Are you serious? This is the perfect time to finish the job Kim. This will do everything we've ever wanted. You actually don't have to do anything, you see this gift does all the work for you." Victor said as he grabbed her hand and dragged her back into Collinwood.

Kimberly began to panic. She didn't want Carolyn to see Victor and she certainly didn't want Carolyn to see Victor with her. Together. Holding Hands. Victor was now being reckless. 

"Victor, come on, let go, stop this!" Kim said as his grip only tightened. "Victor! Please! You're going to get us caught. This House is huge but the walls are thin!" She said again, trying to release herself. 

As they made their way through the crowded with shrubbery Courtyard, he pushed the glass door of a large room that was screened off patio that lead into the house. The pair of conspirators made their way into Collinwood and entered into the kitchen where the cook had the day off. 

"What are you doing?????" Kimberly said, he forehead now beading with sweat.

"I have to show you what Chancellor Devlin sent me." Victor replied pulling out the package that arrived just hours before at his house from someplace where V.W. Devlin was in hiding.

The box inside the briefcase was wrapped in brown paper and had a lid on it that lifted easily. As Victor unwrapped the package that had even more white packaging paper protecting the gift inside, it slowly became visible to Kimberly who was beginning to feel the onset of a panic attack as her eyes gazed on what had been delivered to her. 

She was clammy. Cold. She was feeling sweating and tired. Her blood pressure was high, she felt faint, but looking in the box she felt much worse. This wasn't just regular rush of hormones from her pregnancy. This was a true full on panic attack just from seeing what Victor was showing her. 

It was a bomb.

"Jesus Christ Victor!" Kimberly said slapping his arm in shock.

"You see, this will finally make sure we're rid of this damn family forever. Every last one of them here in this town. Dr. Grayson will make sure David dies at Windcliff, and we'll take care of Alexandra in London when we go there next week. But now, this will end Carolyn and Caleb and this whole house! Its genius." Victor recounted.

"This is..... this is too much. I'm not feeling well and I can't even begin to tell you how this is not the time. Where am I to go if this happens? This is my home too." Kim replied to Victor's stern expression.

"This is your home? This is NOT your home! You made a vow to the OTH that you would help us kill every last member of this demonic family and you're going to do it. No matter what you are going to help me. Other wise we will have no choice but to make sure die too, and Kimberly, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do what they said for me to do to you if you bail on us. Do you know what that would mean?" Victor said, his eyes going cold as he grabbed on to Kimberly's hand tightly.

"No." She said frightened of his reaction.

"You don't want to know, because it is much worse that what we've done here to David or with this bomb. Its more painful. Its more deadly but it won't kill you for hours. You'll suffer. And you'll never see that baby again." he said pointing to her belly.

Just as he did, Kimberly grabbed at her stomach as a sharp pain came stabbing at her belly. She screamed with pain as she spread her feet apart allowing her water to break. Her sudden illness wasn't an illness at all, she was going into labor. 

The baby was coming.

Victor looked down at the floor, the amniotic fluid was all over his and Kim's shoes. He finally was going to see his son. He finally was going to begin the second part of his plan with the child Kim was carrying.

"Oh my god!! OH MY GOD!" Kim screamed as her contractions started to thrust in her body, bone by bone, muscle by muscle. Pain by pain.

"Come on! Let's get you to the hospital!" Victor shouted. As Kim started to walk out of the kitchen, Victor quickly, with the slight of hand clicked the destination clock button to start and hide the box with the bomb under the kitchen table. 

The clock rang the it was detonated and flashed a 24 HOUR countdown.

In the foyer, Kimberly was grabbing her purse as Victor rushed in, opened the front door and headed for his car that was stupidly parked out front. Carolyn and Caleb came down the stairs as Kimberly's painful screams lifted through Collinwood's rafters.

"What the devil?" Carolyn said not seeing Victor but seeing Kim a sweaty mess in the foyer.

"I've gone into labor Carolyn. The baby is coming!" Kim said.

"OH MY!! Ok I'll get the drive to come up, no...Ill Get an ambulance up here, no Ill take you myself!" Carolyn said, panicking with excitement and not knowing there was a bomb in the kitchen waiting to blow the entire mansion up to smithereens. 

"No, no, no, a friend of David's is here, he was visiting and checking in on me and he's going to take me." Kim said lying about Victor's "Friendship" with David.

"Are you sure??" Carolyn said as she and Caleb stepped of the final step from the staircase.

"Yes, thank you. Please just stay here with Caleb. ....Caleb honey, mama is going to go now, for a little while, Ok? Ill be back soon." Kim said her voice struggle to speak with pain.

"Where????" Caleb said asking where she was off to.

"Im gonna have a baby honey, Ill come home with your..." as she finished her sentence, Victor honked his car's horn. "Ill be back ok? Listen to Cousin Carolyn as I'm out." She said as Victor rushed up the steps of the front entrance to help her to the waiting car. 

As Caleb reached up for Carolyn to hold him again. She did, and hugged him tight. She was oddly happy for Kim, who she never really liked. But she believed Kim was giving birth to David's second child, she had no idea the baby was really Victor's.

To Carolyn and even to Caleb, the joy of a new incoming family member would soon wash away so much pain of the last few weeks of death and sadness.

Little did the happy family members know, a ticking clock on a bomb that could blow a 40 foot trench into the ground where it was placed was never going to let anyone else be happy again. Not now.

Not ever.