Subj: Collinsport -- 54
Date: 3/22/99 5:30:35 PM Central Standard Time
From: DSRules

{I can't do this.} Rosario thought. {Barnabas would never ask it of me.} Then she chided herself for this train of thought. {Of course he wouldn't ask you to do it, and that's why you have to do this. If he knew what curing Julia would take, he'd do it, and it'd be all your fault.}

She steeled herself for what was to come by remembering how the pain on Barnabas' face at his wife's illness tore at her heart. Reaching into the case that carried her spellcasting supplies, she pulled out one candle. She sat cross-legged on the floor and concentrated on her former associate. {Nicholas. I need you. Please come to me.}

He didn't show up. She tried again. {Nicholas. I can summon you the hard way if I have to. Please don't make me have to do that.}

{Wait a second! What if he's been reincarnated?} She walked over to the small mirror that rested on the wall above the sink. Concentrating, she entreated the mirror to show her where Nicholas was. Gradually, the image shifted to reveal him to her. As usual, he was reading. His appearance had changed considerably, but she thought that might have more to do with his
current incarnation's youth than with anything else.

The mirror was too small to use as a portal, so she couldn't visit him. Instead, she called out his name. "Nicholas!"

He started, nearly dropping his book on the floor. "Who -- ?" Then he saw her. "Angelique? Is that you? My, how you've changed!" He chuckled.

"I'm not here for a review of my current incarnation, Nicholas, or whatever name you're going by this time. I want to make a deal with you."

* * * * *

Burke, Laura and Zoe were walking back from the park when they ran into Roger.

"Hi, Roger!" Zoe called out to her cousin, only to be thoroughly rebuffed by her.

"What's up with him?" She asked the other two.

Laura pursed her lips. "He's been like that for a couple of weeks now. At least he's not reading one of those *books* this time." She rolled her eyes.

"Books? What kind of books?"

Burke answered Zoe's question. "One of Roger's teachers has given him a bunch of books to read -- he says that they'll make him a happier person if he'll read them, or some garbage like that."

"Really? Weird!" Zoe breathed.

* * * * *

"You want to make a deal with me?" He laughed then, a sound that chilled her to her bones. "I always knew you wouldn't be able to keep up your resolve. Which law of physics do you want to circumvent so badly that you'd trade your soul for it?"

"I want to be able to change someone's shape."

"Ah! Like when you turned dear Joshua into a cat? You always did have such a sense of style, Angelique!"

"Something like that, yes." This wasn't entirely untrue. It would take something nearly that drastic to re-form Julia's heart so that she could live out her normal lifespan.

"You're not planning to double-cross us again are you, Angelique? That Faustian 'repent at the last moment' thing doesn't work anymore."

She replied, with all sincerity, "I know that I eluded my punishment before, Nicholas. I won't try to escape it again."

That wicked half-grin that she used to love so much, but which she now loathed, spread across his features. "Very well, then. Consider it a deal."

* * * * *

Quentin stopped his car in front of Barnabas and Julia's house. Hand in hand, the pair walked up the front sidewalk to the door and knocked. No one answered. Quentin knocked again. Still no answer.

He sighed. "They must have stepped out. Well, we might as well go back to the car to wait until they get home."

"And what are we going to do until then?" Azura asked.

"I'm sure we can think of something," he winked at her.

* * * * *

Saying a silent prayer that Rosario would be able to help Julia, Barnabas stopped pounding on the door and commenced pacing back and forth. After Rosario and Julia had been locked in together for about half an hour, Barnabas looked at his watch. "Damn!" He exclaimed.

"What's the matter?" Sarah asked her brother.

"Quentin was supposed to be meeting us at our house about now. I was in such a hurry to get here, I didn't even leave him a note. I'm not even sure I closed the door to the house."

Ever since David had gone off to consult with Julia's cardiologist on her case, Sarah had been feeling superfluous. She was glad to finally be able to help her brother in some small way. "Why don't Javier and I go to your house and meet Quentin and bring him here?"

"Could you? I'd very much appreciate it."

Sarah looked over at Javier. "Why not? It'll give me something to do." He said.

Sarah exchanged a hug with her brother. "Don't worry. She'll be fine." She said as she kissed him on the cheek.

"I'm sure she will be, too." Barnabas' words exuded a confidence that was lacking from his expression.

* * * * *

Not being a sufficient artist to fashion a human heart from clay, Rosario, instead, opted for the "laying on of hands" technique. She placed her hands in the center of Julia's chest, above her heart, and concentrated. Gradually, she heard the pulse of the heart monitor change as Julia's heart became stronger and stronger. Finally, the improvement stopped, and she knew that Julia's heart was whole again.

The sense of accomplishment she got from having saved another human's life was made bitter by the knowledge of what she sold to gain that ability. Suddenly, she'd lost all interest in visiting her brother.

As Julia regained consciousness, Rosario fashioned a doorway from the hospital room to her apartment in San Antonio. Silently, she unlocked the door of the hospital room. Before Barnabas had a chance to notice that the door was unlocked, she stepped through the doorway she had created, sealing it up behind her as she returned to her home.

Subj:Collinsport -- 55
Date: 3/31/99 3:45:28 AM Central Standard Time
From: DSRules

Sarah and Javier drove up to Barnabas' house and parked behind Quentin's car - the windows of which were fogged up.

When she got out of her car and approached the other vehicle, Javier leaped out and stopped her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You can't just barge in on them. It looks like they're . . . busy." He looked pointedly at the fogged-up windows of the car.

"This is an emergency. I'm sure they'll forgive me for interrupting them. I hope." She gave her friend a lopsided smile and strode resolutely over to the other car.

* * * * *

Quentin and Azura had made love with as much abandon as they could manage in the back seat of a car parked in broad daylight in front of a relative's house in Bangor on a sunny March afternoon, and they now lay, warm and sated, in each other's arms.

Quentin shifted uncomfortably. His head was shoved up against the rear window on the driver's side and his feet were tucked under the front passenger's side seat. "We've *got* to get a bigger car," he smiled down at her.

"I think I can come up with something to take your mind off of it," Azura smiled up at him.

As she expected, this sparked her lover's interest. "Oh? Do tell me what you have in mind."

She reached up to kiss him, but was interrupted by a rapid knocking on the window of the car. She flinched. "Oh, my God! Do you think that's the police?"

He smiled at her, trying to tuck his shirt back into his pants. "If it is, I'll keep your name out of the papers. I promise."

* * * * *

"Dad!"

Barnabas spun in the direction of the voice. "Ben! Tori! Thank God you're here!"

"We got your message. Is Mom OK?" Ben asked.

"I'm sure she'll be fine." Barnabas was not as proficient a liar as he had once been, and his children saw right through him.

"Dad!" Tori looked at him pointedly. "Tell us the truth. Mom's not going to make it, is she?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't look like it. Not this time."

"Can we go in to see her?" Tori crossed to the door of the room.

"No - there's someone in there with her -" Barnabas began to say, but his voice faded out when Tori turned the handle and the door swung silently open.

With an apprehensive shrug, Tori turned and walked into the room.

* * * * *

Eternal youth notwithstanding, Quentin's back creaked a bit as he unfolded himself to get out of the car. He smoothly closed the door to conceal the identity of his companion as he stood up and turned to face the other person.

"Sarah?!?" He asked, incredulously. "What the heck are you doing here?"

A moment later, the door opened again and Azura stepped out, futilely trying to straighten out her mussed hair. "What's going on?"

Sarah and Javier looked from Quentin to Azura and back again, trying to suppress knowing smiles. However, the news she had to deliver made the smirk leave Sarah's face immediately when she began to deliver it. "Barnabas sent us for you. It's Julia. She's in the hospital, and it doesn't look like she's going to get better this time."

* * * * *

Laura smoothed her hair down as she knocked on the door of the mansion.

A minute later, a young blonde woman answered the door. Laura nearly blurted out Carolyn's name, but caught herself in the nick of time. {She looks enough like Carolyn to be her daughter,}Laura thought.

"May I help you?" The blonde asked.

"Perhaps you may. I'm looking for a David Collins."

"David? How did you know to come here to look for him?"

"Oh!" Laura smiled. "The movers at his old house in Winter Harbor told me that he was moving back to Collinsport, and I remember my mother telling me about the Collins family, and Collinwood, so I just figured that he must be moving back in here. He did grow up here, didn't he?"

The blonde nodded grudgingly. "At least, that's what they've always told me. Why do you want to see David?"

"I'm his sister. Lauren Stockbridge."