Subj: Second Chances Part 2
Date: 2/14/00 1:55:27 AM Central Standard Time
From: ReAnne Moreau

Quentin Collins rubbed his weary eyes as he headed toward the back staircase that led to the kitchen and the last piece of Mrs. Johnson's chocolate cake. //If that damn portrait can cure me of being a werewolf, why the hell can't it do something as simple as help me understand microbiology? There's no point in being immortal if you're going to spend eternity being stupid.// A light shining under a doorway onto the hall carpet caught his attention. Julia was still awake.

He paused, staring thoughtfully at the door to her room, contemplating the utter disaster of his attempt at matchmaking. Barnabas had brooded, in typical Barnabas fashion, for several weeks after Quentin's attempt to goad him into declaring his feelings for Julia. The doctor had administered her last treatment and he was finally free of the vampire curse. Now free to travel, he announced he was leaving for an extended tour of Europe to visit various shipbuilding establishments preparatory to reviving the Collins shipyard. While in Italy, he just *happened* to run into Maggie Evans, who had taken a job as a nanny to an American couple living in Rome. The announcement of their wedding came mere days later. They had no plans to return to the States any time soon.

Roger and Liz called to extend slightly cool congratulations; they were after all nearly as fond of Maggie as of Julia. Carolyn was brief and snarky, as only she could be. Quentin waited until Maggie hung up, called Barnabas several imaginative names and threatened to toss him off Widows' Hill if he ever came near Julia again. The lady herself withdrew into stoic silence, looking for all the world like one of the walking dead. That had been several months ago and Quentin was doing his best to help her through it.

-------------------------

The only sound in Julia Hoffman's room was the chilling howl of the wind that swept around the corners of the enormous house. After so many years, she barely noticed it. The bed in which she sat was littered with medical journals. She twisted a lock of hair around her finger as she sat against the headboard, absorbed in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association.

She had grown her hair out a bit, until it lost that spiky look and curled in flattering layers away from her face. Cut short it tended to stick up in strange places, worn long the thick locks were wildly out of control. Julia became aware that she was creating a fine tangle and impatiently combed her fingers through her hair. Looking at the bedside clock she sighed, realizing that she really should be asleep by now.

The wailing of the wind intruded on her awareness and she shivered. It was the loneliest sound she had ever heard; it seemed to echo in the empty places in her heart. The news of Barnabas' marriage to Maggie had cut like a knife. Almost as bad was the pity she saw in Liz and Roger's faces and the way they treated her like an abandoned wife. She had never been Barnabas' wife; she had never even been his lover. There were days when she thought that it would have been easier if she had been, even if it was only to lose him to Maggie. At least she would have had the memory for comfort on these long, cold nights.

Fortunately for her sanity, Carolyn and Quentin had known better than to extend overt sympathy. Carolyn, whose psychic powers were still growing, must have easily detected her pain. But she had done nothing except be Julia's friend and try to keep her busy. She even talked the doctor into donating her services to the battered women's shelter where Carolyn had been volunteering her time, trying to keep her mind off the death of her husband.

A warm smile came to Julia's lips at the thought of Quentin's kindness. They had been friends from the beginning, sharing an instant understanding. He was genuinely delighted when Eliot Stokes had talked her into teaching a class twice a week at the University; Quentin and she sometimes drove in together and she helped him with his studies. Julia kept him from becoming too distracted by his social life and he kept her from becoming a hermit.

There was a soft knock at the door. Julia smiled and called out, "Come in, Quentin." It was unlikely to be anyone but her fellow insomniac. They were quite often the only occupants of Collinwood awake at this hour and had fallen into the habit of keeping each other company.

Her guess was right on the nose. Quentin entered her room in his white pajamas and blue robe, carrying a plate with an enormous piece of chocolate cake and two forks. He handed her the plate and cleared some of the debris off the bed so he could sit on the edge. //Medical journals! What she needs is a good trashy novel. Someone needs to teach this woman how to have fun.//

"I saw the light under your door and I know you've never refused anything chocolate." He perched comfortably on the side of the bed, turning toward his friend and grinning. He saw with dismay that she had gone straight for the frosting, ignoring the cake. With a mock glower, he grabbed the plate back. "Give me that. You, Julia Hoffman, are a chocoholic."

Amused green eyes glinted back at him, their color enhanced by the emerald silk pajamas she wore. She swallowed with difficulty. "You forgot the milk."

Quentin's heart warmed to see her laugh again, even at something so trivial. They managed to finish the rest of the cake without getting into a food fight, chatting about inconsequentials.

"What's keeping you up tonight, Quentin?" she asked. "You don't smell like stale beer and cigarettes, so I assume you haven't been out carousing."

"Microbiology." He looked glum. "What was I thinking of Julia? I'm too old to be doing this. When I was in college the first time electric lights were cutting edge technology." He ran a hand through his hair, looking faintly panicked.

Julia grabbed his hand, looking him straight in the eye. "Calm down Quentin. For your information, the University of Maine is not in the habit of putting stupid people on the dean's list. You are doing just fine, and I'm very proud of you."

Quentin sighed, wrapping her hand in both of his enormous paws and squeezing it gently. "Thank you. Tell me that a few more times and I might even start to believe you."

She would have taken her hand back, but Quentin held on to it. There was something else that had been bothering him all evening. "Elizabeth told me that you were thinking about moving back to your apartment at Wyndcliffe," he blurted. He felt her body go tense.

"There doesn't seem to be much point in staying here any longer. Barnabas is cured, you've settled in nicely and I've found a way to keep Chris unconscious when he transforms ..." She couldn't quite look him in the eye. They both knew the reason she wanted to leave.

"Please don't go, Julia."

His quiet plea touched what was left of the doctor's heart. Eloquent blue eyes begged her to reconsider. She shook her head and sighed. "Despite all the terrible things that have happened at Collinwood, this feels more like home than any other place ever has."

"It is your home. Face it, Julia, you're one of us now." He gave her a faintly ironic grin, acknowledging that this was not necessarily a good thing. Quentin suddenly realized that he knew very little about Julia's real family apart from the facts that she was an only child and was not close to her parents. She seldom spoke of the subject.

"It just occurred to me that you know everything about the Collinses and I don't know anything about the Hoffmans. You know where all the bodies are buried and which ones are in the habit of getting up and walking around. How about giving me some dirt on your family?"

It crossed Julia's mind that Barnabas had never once asked about her family. There were a lot of things he had never asked about. Dismissing the thought, she wrapped her arms around her upraised knees, unaware of the self protective gesture.

"Compared to the Collinses, we're positively boring." She looked at Quentin out of the corner of her eye. Their beginnings couldn't have been more different. "I grew up in a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia - definitely not on the historic register. I learned how to pick pockets and to hotwire a car when I could barely see over the steering wheel. *My* cousins taught me to play 3 Card Monty, not bridge." She thought with amusement that the residents of Collinwood would have been appalled at the tomboyish little Julie who fought and swore as well as her male classmates.

That explained how his car keys seemed to magically appear in her hand every time he'd had a drop to drink. "Thank goodness you went straight. I shudder to think what would have happened if you ever turned your mind to crime." Quentin had the feeling that if Julia had decided on a career in crime instead of medicine, she would have made Al Capone look like an amateur.

Julia turned her head to glower at Quentin and saw that he had made himself comfortable, lounging against the headboard and regarding her with affectionate amusement. "I was also at the top of my class in school," she informed him irritably. "I graduated at 16 and got a scholarship to Cornell."

"Your parents must have been very proud." //And the local police must have been relieved.//

"You would think so." Julia could hear the forlorn tone in her own voice and hated it. She felt Quentin's hand on her shoulder and turned to look into kind blue eyes. Somehow she found herself
telling him everything.

It was a sad, sordid little tale, but drearily ordinary. Unlike the Collins family history, there were no mansions, no fortunes to be won or lost, no terrible curses.

Aaron Hoffmann was to be the first of his family to go to college. He had won a scholarship in track, not for his perfectly average academic performance. He had also been secretly seeing a Catholic girl named Ellen Corrigan. In the 1950's Jewish boys did not publicly date Catholic girls.

Their secret came out when Ellen discovered she was pregnant. When her parents threw her out of the house, Aaron's parents had insisted he do the honorable thing and marry her. That was the end of his dreams of escaping the neighborhood. It was also the beginning of his resentment of his wife and daughter, especially when Ellen admitted during an argument (which Julia overheard) that she had deliberately tried to get pregnant.

"I've always felt a little sorry for my mother." Julia had finally come to rest against the headboard of the bed, next to Quentin. "She thought that if she could only get married and have a baby her life would be perfect. Instead she got a husband who barely spoke to her and a gawky bookworm
daughter."

Quentin opened his mouth to protest and Julia shook her head with a grin. "Don't bother. She always said I had face like a surprised Siamese. Mother is nothing if not honest." There was genuine affection in her voice. It had actually been intended as an endearment.

There was a certain truth to the comparison, Quentin had to admit. "So, did they know what their little bookworm was up to besides studying?"

"Not a clue. You don't think I ever got caught, do you?"

Julia was a little surprised at how comforting Quentin's presence had become. The cold howling of the wind seemed farther away than it had been. She leaned back, becoming drowsy and content. There had been a time when she buried herself in Gothic novels, dreaming of one day living in a mansion where the rooms required more than a few steps to cross and you couldn't smell the neighbors' dinner cooking. Now here she was living in a (periodically haunted) mansion, talking to a cross between Mr. Rochester and Dorian Gray. A corner of the doctor's mind began idly trying to remember when Mr. Wilde had written his novel and whether he could have met Quentin. No the dates were all wrong.

"Quentin, you must have better things to do than sit here listening to me feeling sorry for myself." When had his arm slipped around her shoulders? She didn't mind, really; it was warm and comfortable.

"Not really. If I study for one more minute my head is going to explode. Besides, it's nice to know that there are families that have normal problems. No ghostly cousins, no weird uncles who sprout fur and howl at the moon?"

"My Uncle Arnie had hair growing on his ears, but it didn't have anything to do with the moon." Her eyes began to drift shut.

Quentin did his best not to snicker. He elicited a few more drowsy details about some of her more interesting relatives, reflecting on how weird ordinary people could be even without the help of curses. He sobered at the mention of her parents, who were famous in the family for their loud and usually public arguments.

"I'm not surprised you decided not to get married and have a family," he admitted. "I'm surprised any of the Collinses have the guts considering our history."

"Quentin, if I'd really wanted a child I would have had one - with or without a husband." Huge yawn. She snuggled down onto the pillows, which coincidentally brought her closer to Quentin.
"Besides, I was married."

"You were what?! Julia ..."

"Hmm?"

"Hey, are you falling asleep?"

"Mmm ..."

"You did that on purpose," Quentin grumbled, watching the sleeping woman next to him. He brushed a finger lightly over her cheek and Julia sighed and snuggled contentedly into the pillow, a slight smile curving those sensual lips. \\Adorable, aggravating creature.\\ He decided to stay for a few minutes to watch her sleep.

Julia woke from a pleasantly erotic dream to the faintest hint of dawn. Her feet were cold. As consciousness trickled back, she realized that the rest of her was excessively warm, especially her back. There was a weight holding her to the bed and she found it difficult to move. Snapping fully awake, she recognized what the problem was. Someone was spooned up behind her, an arm tucked around her waist.

\\Quentin! Damn, I can't believe he fell asleep here. I've got to get him out before anyone wakes up and sees him leaving.\\

She turned her head to look at her companion. He must have pulled off the covers, leaving her only the sheet, which had slipped away from her feet. Quentin made up for his thievery by wrapping himself around Julia, warming her with his body heat.

The sleeping man stirred at Julia's movement, snuggling her even closer to his body, his state of arousal unmistakable. She wasn't the only one having an interesting dream. A hand slid up her torso to cup one breast gently, possessively. He buried his face in her hair, breath tickling the back of her neck. Julia bit back a moan as a wave of wild desire washed through her. The half-remembered dream came back to her in vivid detail.

*She and Quentin were lying spoon-fashion as they were now, naked. His hands played lazily over her body; lips delicately nibbled the tender flesh at the back of her neck, sending shivers up and down her spine. He was inside her, moving slowly, so slowly. Fingers trailed down her stomach to stroke the place that most needed his touch. She felt her climax gathering power. So close ... so close.*

Julia moved Quentin's arm off her body and scrambled to the edge of the bed. She sat for a moment, shaking, her head in her hands. She told herself that her reaction was perfectly natural, that the dream was only the result of the intimate contact with Quentin. \\And the fact that you can barely remember what it's like to have sex.\\ Julia grinned ruefully and shuffled to the bathroom. A few minutes later she emerged, face washed, hair combed and wrapped securely in her green satin bathrobe. She felt much more in control.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she regarded the sleeping man. He was burrowed even further under the covers, a discontented frown on his face. He evidently didn't like being deprived of his pillow. She smoothed a lock of hair away from his forehead. \\What would I have done these last months without you?\\ Their friendship was a warm safe place, shelter from the storm. Julia refused to acknowledge that she was beginning to feel more.

"Quentin ... Quentin, wake up!" She shook his shoulder gently. He muttered and stretched and reluctantly opened his eyes.

"Julia." His voice caressed her name, a slow smile began spreading across his face, then reality hit him right between the eyes. "Julia, what the!?" He sat up looking around in startled confusion and found himself tangled in bedclothes and his robe.

It was impossible not to laugh. "I hope you had a pleasant nap."

Quentin grinned back sheepishly. "Guess I fell asleep." He privately thought that it was worth the embarrassment to see Julia first thing in the morning, laughter dancing in her eyes.

"Mm-hm. You also stole the blankets. But at least you don't snore."

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't realize how tired I was." Scrubbing his palms over the stubble on his cheeks and rubbing bleary eyes, he wondered if he looked as seedy as he felt. And he had an erection. \\Shit. That was some dream. If Julia had any idea I was having that kind of dream about her she'd kill me.\\ He felt the problem subside from pure embarrassment. Suddenly, recollection of last night's conversation returned, eclipsing his morning concerns.

"Julia! What the hell is this about a husband and why haven't you ever mentioned him before?"

Julia sighed in exasperation. She'd hoped he would have forgotten. "It's not something I'm particularly proud of. We were only married for three years. I still wonder if there was something I could have done to change the way things turned out."

"It's all right, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." His expression suddenly serious, Quentin took her hand, entwining their fingers.

She sat on the bed next to him, her free hand stroking the razor stubble on his cheek. Quentin was always so gentle with her. She kept hold of his hand.

"There isn't much to tell. Ben and I met in college. We were lab partners for biochemistry our junior year. He was having some trouble in class so I agreed to tutor him. We fell in love and got married. He was the first man who ever told me he loved me." Sad eyes raised briefly to Quentin's then looked away again. "The only one." Julia pulled herself together with a visible effort. "We both applied to several medical schools. Ben wasn't accepted; I was. Our marriage couldn't stand the strain and we got a divorce."

Quentin put a comforting arm around Julia. He was surprised when she leaned her head on his shoulder. He knew there was more to the story and vowed that she would tell him one day. It was always so hard for the doctor to show vulnerability; he was touched that she seemed comfortable talking to him about something this personal.

"All I can say is the man must have been crazy to let you go." It came out more gruffly than he had intended.

Julia stood again, a slight smile on her lips. She had to fight the urge to crawl into his warmth and fall asleep again wrapped in his arms. \\What is it about the Collins men that I can't resist?\\

"Now that you know my life story, it's time for you to leave. \\Before I ask you to hold me.\\ What if someone gets up early and sees you leaving my room?" She pulled Quentin to his feet and pushed him, laughing, toward the door. "Besides, I might as well get my run in early since I'm already up." Julia tilted her head and grinned up at the man in front of her. "Would you care to join me?"

Quentin groaned. The doctor had taken up running after she quit smoking and made a morning ritual out of trying to convince him to go with her. "What, for my health? No thanks, I'm going back to sleep." Mischief danced in his eyes, as he repeated her invitation. "Would you care to join me?" It got him a flinty-eyed glare.

"Just because you don't age doesn't mean you can't get fat."

"What do you mean, fat?" He tried to glance surreptitiously into the mirror. "Now, see here, are you implying ..."

She gave him another push toward the door, trying very hard not to laugh. "Out!"

Quentin stopped in his tracks, watching Julia laughing in the early morning sunlight, adorably disheveled, her eyes sparkling. It was all he could do not to kiss her then and there. He took a deep breath, gathering his courage.

"Julia there's something I have to tell you before I go. I should have told you a long time ago."

Something in his manner stopped the retort that was on Julia's lips.

"What happened with Barnabas was my fault." He told her haltingly about his trip to the Old House, about declaring himself as a rival for Julia's affections and Barnabas' furious response. By the time he finished, Quentin had worked himself up into a temper. "Any idiot could see that he loved you! It should have worked."

Julia rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was beginning to get a headache. It was just such a *Quentin* thing to do - well intentioned, impulsive and with disastrous results.

"Quentin, you know you can't back Barnabas into a corner. He always does something stupid when he's under pressure."

Quentin chuckled. Julia had a way of cutting right to the heart of the matter. "I'd say running off and marrying Maggie Evans qualifies."

"Not necessarily." Julia grimaced. "Maggie is beautiful, young and still naive in a lot of ways. She won't challenge him when he gets out of line or insist that he do the right thing. I think that after Angelique, Barnabas is afraid of any woman who can actually stand up to him."

Her headache was getting worse. Glancing in the mirror didn't help as she compared herself to the nubile young woman Barnabas had married. Quentin spoke her name for the second time before he attracted her attention.

"I'm sorry Julia. I didn't mean for things to turn out like this. Maybe if I'd just left him alone ..."

"I would still be hanging around hoping for something that would never happen," she finished. "I'm not angry with you Quentin. What you tried to do was very sweet." Julia couldn't help but be touched by his misguided attempt to help. "But next time you feel the urge to fix my life, resist."

The ghost of a smile lurked around the corners of her mouth and Quentin felt that a weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. Hurting Julia was the last thing he ever wanted to do. Getting her mad at him was next on the list. He reached for the doorknob, pausing before opening the door to the hallway.

"One more thing before I go."

Julia braced herself.

"I may not have realized it at the time, but what I told Barnabas about wanting you was the truth." He congratulated himself - Julia was standing there wide-eyed, completely speechless, something that didn't happen very often.

"The next time I wake up in your bed, Julia, it won't be an accident."

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.