Subj: DS:Ally 4
Date: 3/21/02 5:30:21 PM Central Standard Time
From: Aesgaard

Lizzie Loomis had met her emotional twin in Elaine Vassal. Both ladies were spirited beyond belief and love music. Lizzie was a bit more promiscuous, but Elaine didn't hate her for it. When Elaine asked to see where William slept, the two slipped out of the birthday party, out the back and down to the Old House alone. Lizzie led the way as Elaine followed her would-be clone. They pushed open the door to William's bedroom.

"Oh my god !!!!" Elaine gleefully scanned the books and journals scattered around or stacked neatly in corners. A tiny TV was on the corner with a shirt draped over it and the other corner had his computer set up. Movie posters and autographed actress photos hung in frames. Elaine peered excitedly at tiny craftfully built models of boats and cars and planes on shelves above his bureau. She stepped over a stack of magazines by a box of crackers and picked up his pillow from his hastily covered canopy bed. She sniffed the scent from it and placed her head in the mold. Lizzie watched in disbelief.

"You're in love with him !" She exclaimed.

"You better believe it." She saw her photo and Ally's by the bed. She placed Ally's down and put hers on top of it. On the wall was Paula Anderson, the Collinsport native who once passed through Boston. They heard the door open and close downstairs. Lizzie's eyes went wild as steps came closer to them.

She partially closed the door, pushed part of the decor on the wall and pushed the wall aside to a secret passageway. Elaine tossed William's pillow aside and followed her.

Angelique paused in her son's door and scanned the room. It was once Barnabus's room, but always a rat's nest. She pulled the door aside and opened the wall.

"Ladies," she replied. "My husband and Willie closed this off when William turned thirteen."

The two embarrassed blondes emerged slightly covered in dust and cobwebs.

Lizzie had been in trouble before, but Elaine was just embarrassed. "Sorry, Aunt An."

"Me too." Elaine flashed a guilty smile.

"Guilty pleasures, Mrs Vassal ?" Angelique smiled as she understood their motives.

"Mrs. Collins." Elaine began. "Have you ever been in love with someone so much you'd do anything to win his heart ?"

Angelique smiled and rolled her eyes toward Sara's room, formerly Josette's room, at the end of the hall by the stairs. She almost said something as Barnabus called up from the downstairs.

"Angelique, I can't find the book I was read-.......Never mind, I found it."

"No comment." Angelique looked back to Elaine.

William had left the party wearing his new jacket and carrying his new cane.

He and Ally held hands over the estate grounds he had covered a million times as a boy. The path took them past the restored Rose Cottage where his Uncle Quentin and Aunt Maggie lived. It took them to Collins Road and then to Sea view as they paused at the end of the dead end street. Ally looked up at the spooky old stone and wood edifice hidden behind trees and shivered.

"Is there any house in town that isn't a hundred years old ?"

"Not on this side of town. The other side has some recent developments."

William chuckled. "Most of town was built between 1650 and 1790 by my ancestor Isaac Collins. His brother built the courthouse and his wife opened the first school."

"Must be nice having a long family history." Ally sat on a short stone wall.

"This house," William looked to the one behind the trees. "Is Sea view. It was built by Caleb Sayers Collins in 1851 against the wishes of his father." William paused for effect. "Want to see inside ?"

"We shouldn't. The owner....." She watched William jog up the stone path.

"You're talking to him." William jingled some keys and unlocked the door.

"My Aunt Liz left the place to me when she died. Being the oldest, I guess she assumed I'd be first to marry."

Ally glanced inside the small foyeur and stairs heading up. The inside was partially furnished. She grinned at the coat rack by the door with a coat and cowboy hat on it then to a lonely kitchen set beyond an open counter. Through the back windows she saw the sea through curtainless windows. On the wall the fireplace was cleaned out spotlessly without an ash or unburnt log in it. The place was drab and lonely as William returned from the kitchen with a glass of lemonade.

"I've been moving furniture in a little at a time." William added. "Sara and Lizzie sometimes pay me to bring dates here, but my mailing address is still Collinwood."

"Is this...." Ally looked into his brown eyes. "Your way of asking me to marry you ?"

William choked on his lemonade.

"What ?" He coughed. "I mean, I want to..........but, do you want...... Would you want to.........leave Boston ?"

"I don't know." Ally smiled like a little girl. "I think I could, but leave Cage and Fish ?"

"Tony Peterson and Richard Garner could use another partner."

"Oh, William," Ally grinned as if she considered it. "I couldn't.....I mean, I might, but...."

"Loyalty." He caressed her chin and lifted her head slightly as he kissed her. She inhaled his presence into her lungs and exhaled breathlessly. "I love you, and anything you want."

Ally smiled her waifish grin as the pixie-like sparkle took possession of her eyes. Her cheeks became adorably unbearable as she kissed him. "Maybe." She murmured. "But not so fast. Let's see where we're heading."

"I've got something upstairs I haven't tried out yet." William revealed.

"A waterbed ?" Ally narrowed her eyes.

"A pool table !!" He clinked an imaginary ball.

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.