Collinwood, September 1971 

The atmosphere in the car on the ride back to Collinsport was thick with the sexual tension and desire that had been building between the couple for years.  Barnabas drove one-handed, his arm around Julia as she snuggled close to him on this chilly September night.  Neither knew quite what to say to the other as the car sped home under a clear black canopy sky that was pierced by a multitude of silver stars.

On the radio, Barnabas’ old friend, Sammy the Spinner, had just announced a Bing Crosby/Grace Kelly duet, and the lovely words sung by the unlikely duo filled the quiet stillness of the darkened car:

“While I give to you     
And you give to me,
True love, true love.
So on and on
It'll always be,
True love, true love.
For you and I
Have a guardian angel
On high, with nothin' to do.
But to give to you
And to give to me,
Love forever true.”

(Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter)

“I love this movie,” Julia sighed as Barnabas squeezed her a little tighter listening to Bing and the future Princess of Monaco sing about having a guardian angel.

“Another movie song?” he chuckled.

“Yes.  The song is from High Society.  It’s another favorite of mine although I prefer the original movie, The Philadelphia Story.  I think you would like both movies, Barnabas.”

“It seems I have a lot to catch up on,” he murmured suggestively.

She raised her head to look into his eyes.  In the glow of the dashboard lights, they were twinkling much as the stars in the onyx sky.

***

Barnabas slowed the car as they passed through the imposing wrought iron gates of Collinwood. He turned to his companion and spoke in a voice that belied little of the anxiety he was really feeling.

“Julia, I know it is rather late, but I am not yet ready for this evening to end.  Would you come back to the Old House with me?”

“I don’t want it to end yet either, Barnabas,” she whispered, her already racing heartbeat accelerating to match that of a scared rabbit’s.

“Good,” he murmured as he kissed the top of her head and continued past the looming great house.   In a few moments, he was escorting her through the front door of his home and helping her off with her wrap.

“Willie….?”

“Has the evening off,” he finished.

She smiled and took two steps into the drawing room before stopping with a gasp.  The room was aglow with candlelight, and cozy from the heat of the fire that cast golden shadows across the room. Flickering candles covered every surface but for those that held vases of fragrant fresh flowers of all kinds.  Champagne chilling in a silver bucket bathed in condensation waited patiently next to two crystal flutes upon a silver tray.

In awe of the scene, Julia moved further into the room, absently laying her purse on a chair.  “Barnabas, this is amazing.”

Behind her, he hastily slipped a package he had retrieved from the desk drawer into his pocket.  “I’m glad you like it, Julia.”

“Wherever did you get all of these flowers at this time of year?” she asked turning to him.  “Wait, don’t tell me – a little cricket helped you.”

“Exactly.”  He crossed the room and took her in his arms.  “I wanted this room to be full of the flowers that remind me of you,” he said softly before pressing his lips to hers.  “Julia, I very much enjoyed our dances this evening.  Would you dance with me again, now?”

She looked at him quizzically.  “I’d be happy to, but there’s just one problem– we haven’t any music.”

“That is easily remedied, Julia.”  He released her and moved to the corner of the room.  “Apparently you did not notice my new record player.” Turning on the machine, he placed the needle carefully on the correct band on the record and adjusted the volume to a low setting.

“You have really thought of everything, haven’t you?” she asked as he returned to take her in his arms again.

“I try, my dear.” He pulled her closer to him, and they began to sway together to the music as if they had been dancing partners for years instead of for just one night.

As the song began, Julia immediately recognized the tune, but was flabbergasted when Barnabas began to sing the words to her in a clear, sweet baritone that easily eclipsed the voices on the recording. He began softly and finished powerfully, interpreting the song much the same as he had heard Andy Williams sing it:

“There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere.
There's a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time to spare,
Time to look, time to care,
Someday!
Somewhere.
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere.
There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're half way there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow,
Someday,
Somewhere!”

She looked up into his face as he sang to her and realized she had never seen him look so happy, so hopeful, and so utterly at peace with himself and his world.  This was the Barnabas Collins who had had so many plans and dreams as a young man.  This was the Barnabas Collins who had treated a servant as a friend, who had hoped for a wife and family, who had loved his mother and sister with all of his heart. This was the Barnabas Collins - a good and decent man - she had always known existed behind the cursed creature he had been forced to become. 

This was the Barnabas Collins she had fallen in love with almost at first sight.

Trembling with emotion, she understood why he had not had this song played at the restaurant; he had planned this private dance for them and only for them. 

“Barnabas, that was beautiful,” she whispered, pressing her body closer to his as he finished singing.  “I – ouch!”  She rubbed her hip where a square object in his jacket pocket had poked her. “What is that?”

He released her and rather sheepishly pulled a small box out of his pocket.  Inside lay a round medallion engraved with the words “Official Conscience” in a fancy script.

She let out a laugh of delight.  “Real gold?”

“Of course.  I owe him a great deal more than this” 

“And what did Mr. Braithwaite think of this?”

“Oh, I’m sure he thinks the Collinses deserve their reputation as lunatics, but we pay well for our eccentricities.  So like his father, grandfather, et cetera, before him, he doesn’t blink an eye.”

“When are you going to give it to Willie?”

Before answering her, he closed and set aside the box, then slowly and almost hesitantly met her eyes again.  “I thought perhaps…I would give it to him as a gift for being…my best man.”

Julia felt her heartbeat accelerate again as she looked up into his face. “Your…?”

“Julia, Willie’s gift was not the only item I ordered from Braithwaite’s.” 

Taking her left hand gently in both of his, he gracefully fell to one knee before her.  “Julia, I know there are those who would say that you deserve a better man than I am.  I would tell them that they are right; you do deserve a better man. And I would be no man at all, not in any sense, had it not been for you.  All the same, I would also tell them that no man could love you more than I do.

“Julia Hoffman, will you marry this man who, although he does not deserve you, loves you more than life itself?”

Will you marry this man….?

They were words she thought she would never hear.  Just a month ago, she had likened the two of them to Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.  She had seen herself as Rhett, walking away from Scarlett, who had recognized her love for Rhett too late.  But a month ago, Julia had forgotten something, forgotten that she had always believed in her heart that Rhett had come back to Scarlett - just as she had now come back to Barnabas.

She bit her lip to regain control of her emotions before speaking and held onto the chair next to her for some much needed support.  “Barnabas, neither of us is perfect.  And you are the only man I have ever truly loved.  Try as I might, I have not been able to run away from that, from you.  Yes, Barnabas Collins, I will marry you.”

He released the breath he had been holding and reverently kissed her hand, then removed another small box from his pocket.  Julia’s sparkling eyes went wide as he opened it to reveal a large brilliantly cut diamond set in platinum and surrounded by baguettes.  The shimmering stone lying against the black velvet reminded her of the stars she had seen burning in the night sky – and of the now familiar twinkling in Barnabas’ dark eyes as he knelt here before her. 

He watched her reaction for a moment, then placed the ring on her finger and laid his head against her shaking hand.  “Julia,” he sighed in a voice low and deep.

Reaching out, she pressed his head against her belly and ran her other hand through his thick hair, mussing it.  Overcome with emotion, the tears she could not stop fell onto his bowed head as if christening him with her love.

Julia finally fumbled one-handed in her purse for a tissue to mop her streaming eyes, and as she did so, a long white envelope fell from the purse onto the floor.  Picking it up, Barnabas noted with alarm that it was addressed to Dr. Sylvia Stephens in Julia’s hand.

He quickly stood and held the letter out to her.  “Julia…?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“That is the letter I wrote to Stevie accepting her job offer, Barnabas.”

The sudden confusion and hurt on his face pierced her heart, and she hurried on, “I took it to San Francisco prepared to hand it to Stevie, but once you left….  I just couldn’t bring myself to give it to her.  I brought it with me tonight to get rid of it once and for all.”

Taking the envelope from him, she threw it into the fireplace with a flick of her wrist and a small sigh of satisfaction. The two of them watched as it was easily consumed by the orange flames, and as the paper turned to blackened ashes, it was as if all of the cruelties, all of the doubts of their past, had also been reduced to nothing but the dead ashes that rested at the bottom of the dusty hearth. 

Taking one last look at the remnants of the letter, Barnabas shuddered as he realized how close he had come to really losing her. Turning away from the fire, he looked down at the chair where Julia’s purse still lay.  Several other items had spilled out of it, and he reached down to scoop them up.  His hand came up with three strands of colorful beads: one of bright green, another of shiny gold, and the last a hot pink.

For the second time in a minute, he felt a fist of fear closing around his heart.  “Julia, you said…when you went to New Orleans….”

She stepped closer to him, a small nervous laugh escaping from her throat.  A blush as pink as the one strand of beads was rapidly creeping up her neck.

“Barnabas, I wasn’t in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  I bought those at Hickok and Robert’s the other day.  Your dreams…I thought you might…that we might…want to….”

Relaxing, he slipped the beads into his pocket with a grin of anticipation.  He pulled her tightly to him, and began to trace sensuous circles across the silky back of her dress.  “You thought right, my love,” he purred into her ear in a voice full of moonlight and roses. 

As he held her, he realized that they had truly come full circle.  It was in this very room that they had first met.  She had come to him so long ago, a brave, driven woman, and had offered him a chance at life again.  He had refused to believe her, had fought her attempts to cure him, but she had not abandoned him. 

It had been in this room that Willie had first made him face that he cared for Julia more than he appeared to, that she was, indeed, a very important part of his life.  And it had been in this room just a month ago that his friend had made him admit outright that he loved Julia and had prodded him into following her to California to “bring her home”. 

It had been in this room that he had found her when she had come back, albeit on her own.  She had agreed to give their love a chance, and they had held each other, really held each other, for the first time right here.  Now they stood here together amid the candlelight, surrounded by the soft scent of flowers, and she had consented to become his wife. They really had found their own “somewhere”, their own “someday”, at last.

He had to admit how apt Willie’s Pinocchio analogy had been.  Like Pinocchio, he had entered this century as less than human, animated without being real.  And he had been a woodenhead for far too long, but with the help of a his “conscience” and the enduring love of his own Blue Fairy, he thought that perhaps he had finally, once again, been granted the chance to be a real boy.

He looked down into her serene face, placing small kisses on her forehead, her nose and finally on her lips.  His senses were overwhelmed by her – the feel of her skin warm from the fire, the sound of her soft but rapid breathing against his chest, the familiar but soothing scent of her perfume.  And the way the flash of the firelight caught in her coppery hair created a fiery halo around her head... a halo around his angel of fire. 

Her warmth, her smell, the sight and sound of her – these were the things that defined “home” for him.  He thought back again to Willie’s words before he had gone to San Francisco, “bring her home”, and knew now that home for him was in her arms, just as he was now.

“Welcome home, Julia,” he whispered as he held her closer. “Welcome home, my Angel.”

                  THE END.