Subj: Second Chances Part 1
Date: 2/14/00 2:01:37 AM Central Standard Time
From: ReAnne Moreau
COLLINSPORT, MAINE 2000
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VOICE OVER (Nancy Barrett): On this cold, dark winter night there will be a confrontation in the Old House on the Collinwood estate. For those involved, the repercussions of this night will echo for many years to come, in ways they never expected.
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"There's no polite way to put this, Barnabas. I want Julia."
Quentin lounged in his usual indolent manner in one of the wing chairs in front of the fire. A snifter of brandy dangled from his fingers, reflecting the firelight.
Barnabas looked at him in shock. This certainly wasn't what he had expected when his cousin turned up at the door of the Old House asking to talk.
"What do you mean, you *want* Julia?" he asked, storm clouds already gathering in his eyes. Normally he found Quentin's off-hand manner charming; he sometimes even envied the younger man's casual grace and forthright speech. Definitely not tonight.
"I mean what I say, Barnabas. I want Julia. I want to spend time with her. I want to make her care about me. To make love to her if she'll let me." He looked over the rim of the glass as he took a sip, watching Barnabas sitting there in his perfectly pressed suit, growing more furious by the minute. He sent up a silent prayer of thankfulness for his immortal body. He might be in need of it before the night was through.
"I will not let Julia become another one of your conquests!"
"Neither will I. And if you knew anything about the woman you'd realize *she* would never allow that. Has it occurred to you that I might actually have feelings for her?" He drove his point home with a satisfied smile. "Or that she might have feelings for me?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Barnabas looked down his aristocratic nose at his cousin, lounging in jeans and an old white shirt, in *his* favorite chair, drinking *his* best brandy and laying claim to ...
Quentin interrupted his thoughts with a bark of laughter. "What's ridiculous, that I could appreciate Julia? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. She's the most extraordinary woman I've ever met. She's intelligent, courageous, completely fearless." He rose from the chair with a pitying smile for the flabbergasted vampire. "Neither of us deserves her, but at least I'm willing to try to live up to the challenge."
"And just what is it you think you can offer a woman like Julia Hoffman?" Barnabas asked smugly.
"How about love? Affection? Some acknowledgment that she's a damned attractive woman and that I've noticed it? That's more than she gets from you." He played his trump card. "Then there's our common love of medicine. We could even go into practice together some day."
That last remark rekindled the flame of jealousy. Julia had been so proud of Quentin when he decided to go to medical school, in hopes of someday finding a cure for the lycanthropy that afflicted his bloodline. She had been spending a lot time helping her protege in his undergraduate studies, much more time than she had been spending with her old friend, Barnabas.
The elder Collins cousin opened his mouth to rebut Quentin's last remarks when he was interrupted. Quentin was already heading across the candle-lit room toward the door.
"I have something else to offer her, Barnabas, something you don't seem to know anything about - passion. These fragile, helpless girls you're always falling in love with can't hold a candle to Julia." A slow, knowing smile spread across his handsome face. "I can only imagine what she's capable of when she ..."
Quentin grabbed his jacket and bolted out the door, slamming it behind him as Barnabas descended upon him with an inarticulate roar. He kept running down the icey path that led to Collinwood, although the furious vampire didn't appear to be following. One corner of his mind wondered if it was possible for an ageless, immortal werewolf to become a vampire. Considering that he was a Collins, it probably was.
Laughing with exhilaration, he raced into the drawing room of Collinwood. Carolyn Stoddard Hawkes was waiting for him. Light from the fire glinted off the small, tasteful diamond in her nose. Despite the cold weather she was wearing a tube top and retro-70's bell bottoms. She flipped perfectly straight blonde hair over her shoulder and grinned at her cousin conspiratorially.
"Well, did it work?"
"I certainly hope so. If that didn't get him off his backside nothing will. He'll be proposing to her within a month. Or at least making her an indecent proposal."
Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.