Dressing Up

By: Lovely girl 10

Disclaimer: I own nothing that deals with the movie.

Summary: A scaring contest is on its way and Victoria decides to try to scare her boyfriend and her matriarch by dressing up as the ghost that haunted her. Will she be able to scare them, or will it backfire? Set before Victoria realizes that Barnabas is a vampire.

She knew she was going to get in trouble by the very man who she felt close to like a regular boyfriend she desperately wanted.

However, this trouble was a little bit different from the other times she was around the Collins Mansion. And it didn't stop her from making his pale skin crawl just for the fun of it.

Yes, Victoria Winters now knew the perfect plan into scaring the daylights out of her incoming suitor, Barnabas Collins III. And it had to deal with dressing up like the ghost that haunted her since childhood.

Her plan started to form when Elizabeth, assisted by Barnabas himself, decided to give the whole family a good scare when they least expected it. Mainly for their amusement since they invented a new game to pass the time, along with them being the King and Queen when it comes to scaring people.

She once asked David what will it take to scare Elizabeth and Barnabas, and he answered simply. "Aunt Elizabeth is hard to scare, and Uncle Barnabas doesn't seem to be the type of guy to get scared."

Victoria nodded, understanding the situation since she was a recently new addition to the Collins family. Although, she did have a thought about what might be the perfect trick to scare both the matriarch and the new patriarch, but she had to go through the one thing she wanted to do so much when she was Maggie Evans; dress up.

Now, as the new nanny stood before the closet that held the clothes she needed, Victoria hoped that her plan would work. Besides, she knew that there must be something that can scare Barnabas and Elizabeth, and she might have the solution to do that.

She paid attention to the fact that Elizabeth wasn't a fan of the supernatural, mainly the ghosts and witches and vampires, to which she claims them to be myths. And she once noticed that Barnabas III had stared at the old picture of Josette DuPres, and managed to look around the room each time he hears something fall off of the furniture or such. So it might be certain that he is afraid of something, he just doesn't show it.

Victoria took out the desired clothing that she wanted, which was a old purple Victorian dress with small heels. And before she decided to strip herself, she made sure that the door was locked and the windows were closed off. She is sometimes nervous if somebody in the house would be a peeping tom and try to see her naked body(Well, she is only worried if either Roger Collins or Barnabas would be foolish enough to do that sort of thing).

She took off her own blue dress with a white undershirt first and threw the Victorian dress on top of her head. She had a little bit of struggling before the dress finally settled and she managed to get her arms through the sleeves, careful to not ruin the delicate clothing. Victoria moved her hands around her body to dust off some of the dust that had tried to settle on the clothing and made sure that the dress was in its proper position.

Next, she took off her small shoes and replaced them with the small heeled shoes which got her to look like she was an inch taller than before. Victoria then tested out the dress and the shoes by walking around the room, which happened to be the old room of Josette DuPres, where she was to stay until she was to be married.

Victoria studied her walking movements whenever she walked by the mirror, and she silently discovered that she and the ghost had the same movements. She cocked her head in confusion, and amusement. So far, the first part of her plan was complete.

She next worked on her hair. Tying it up in a bun like how the picture described. She even twirled around the mirror as she studied her new hairstyle for tonight. She grunted, "This hairdo will not work!" She quickly took out the bun and messed up her hair once again.

Victoria walked out of the room, careful to not trip on the long dress. "I need some help with the hairstyle." She muttered as she walked down the stars to where the living room was, almost intending on giving up on her prank as she shook her head in disappointment.

Suddenly, her vision was blocked off when a container of flour slammed on top of her head. The flour easily spread around her as Victoria coughed roughly, trying to clean up her eyes, the dress, everything that was covered. Looking frantically for a mirror, the governess could clearly see that she looked like a ghost with the flour covering her from head to toe.

"Sorry about that, Vicky!" Willie apologized in a worried tone. Victoria looked up to see that he was on the second floor, hands crossed on the rail. "I was planning on using the flour to dunk it on Elizabeth right by her office door. But my greasy hands somehow lost its grip with the container."

Victoria coughed softly, covering her mouth with her right hand. "You are forgiven, Willie." Her eyes narrowed around the flour covered hands, face, hair, and the dress. Muttering to herself, Victoria noted. "I will have to wash this dress as soon as I am done with figuring out how to prank Elizabeth and Barnabas."

"Why don't you just prank them the way you are, Vicky?" David offered as she turned to see him behind her. "You do look like a regular ghost, and I bet with some lights that surround you, you will probably scare Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Barnabas in a blink of an eye if you wanted to."

That thought, she considered, was absolutely brilliant!

Ignoring her urge to itch from the flour on her eyes and nose, and keeping herself from giggling in anticipation, Victoria asked for David and Willie to set up a mattress underneath the stair rail so that her plan would take action.

Inside of the Drawing room on the second floor of the mansion, Elizabeth and Barnabas were talking about the latest updates on their fishing business before it changed to their scaring game. For now, they were trying to figure out how to scare the residents in Collinwood.

"I will be able to trick Carolyn into thinking that I am allowing her to go to New York, and you can trick Julia by putting a mouse in her drink." Elizabeth started as she checked off the list. She also showed Barnabas her fake tickets to New York so that he understood the action she will take on her own daughter.

"What do we do into tricking Master David, Roger, Willie, and Victoria?" Barnabas asked with curiosity. He didn't want to be too harsh when he is to trick the young lad, and he doesn't want to give his beloved a heart attack. To be honest, he would rather expose himself to the sun rather than scaring his girlfriend.

"David and Roger will have to wait until we know what to do with them. I don't think we need to worry about finding a way to scare Willie, since he is usually the first to scream whenever he sees something that frightens him. And Vicky, I think we can see her shiver with fright when she sees you as you are. A vampire, I mean." Elizabeth explained.

Barnabas slowly shook his head in dismay. He would not dare do that sort of thing to his sweet Victoria! He covered his face with his hands and muttered. "For that, I would rather suffer dressing up as a pirate than being what my accursed nature wants me to be." He knew that if he even took a little bite on her smooth neck, he would not forgive himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted somebody wearing the ghost sheet with two eye holes. "David, you know that is not going to work on us." Elizabeth told as she turned her head to see what Barnabas was seeing. Instead of hearing David's same "You ruined it!" moment, the person underneath the ghost sheet said nothing as it stared at the two adults.

Barnabas slowly walked over to the ghost costume and looked closely at the persons eyes. They were a ghostly brown, or was it a ghostly blue color? He wasn't sure, until he grabbed the top of the sheet and pulled it off, revealing the person that he didn't expect to see. He whispered in disbelief. "Josette?"

Victoria, pretending to be the ghost of Josette, wanted to smirk, but decided not to do that since it would be the biggest giveaway to her prank. She knew that David was doing the blue light show that showed itself on her body, with him being at the end of the hallway, making sure that he wasn't seen. Willie resorted to using a fan and put it in a small pace where she doesn't lose the flour that was covering her body and making her hair move with the wind, he was also out of sight, but he was enjoying the looks on the Matriarch and Patriarch as he laughed softly while covering his mouth.

'Take deep breathes.' Her conscious urged with confidence. She did exactly that before she replied in the same haunting tone, leaving a disbelieving look from Elizabeth, and a scared yet curious expression from Barnabas. "Help me."

Victoria turned away from them and began to walk through the hallway to where the stair rail would be waiting for her, knowing that they would follow her she kept her walking pace perfect as possible. Even lifting a little bit of the dress to keep her feet from tripping, but making it look like she didn't move the dress at all.

She could definitely hear Barnabas' footsteps as he tries to keep an eye on the ghostly girl, a fearful look was written on his face. Elizabeth was trying her best to catch up to Barnabas and attempted to stop him in his tracks, to which they fail each time.

Once the rail was within her sights, Victoria could hear a distant haunting music echoing through the room, probably from a little radio that Willie found so that it puts in the 'ominous feeling' into the prank. Without any hesitation, she lifted herself up on top of the rail and was careful on the balancing technique that she practiced from before.

She turned around to see Barnabas and Elizabeth staring at her with fright in their eyes as her biggest trick was about to come into action. Victoria repeated in the same haunted tone. "Help me."

And then she fell backwards off of the rail. "No!" Barnabas yelled in fear, running over to the rail and see if the ghost was still there, Elizabeth followed, panicked as she looked over the stair rail to find the ghost giggling as she laid on the floor where the mattress cushioned her fall. Also most of the flour was blown away to reveal the one who had beaten them in their own game; Victoria.

"Vicky?" Elizabeth cocked her head in confusion while Barnabas' eyes widened when he heard the name of his beloved and looked at the Matriarch with a surprised yet confused expression.

Victoria laughed her head off. "You two should have seen your faces! I got you guys really good!" She placed her hands on the mattress and pushed herself up, wiping off the tears of laughter that decorated her cheeks.

"Just be lucky that you didn't get fired, Vicky." Elizabeth scolded before she ended up giggling herself, covering her mouth to try to silence her laughter. "I suppose anyone who can scare me and Barnabas, deserves something for a prank like this..." She then went off to the Drawing room again in a casual walk, going to retrieve something to accommodate Victoria's victory in scaring both her and Barnabas at the same time.

Barnabas himself immediately got some sense into running downstairs to see if his girlfriend was alright. And as Victoria got herself straightened up and dusted some of the flour off of the dress, she couldn't help but noticed a very strict expression written on his face. "Don't ever scare me like that again, Victoria, do you hear me?" He hissed.

"Am I not allowed to scare you anytime I want?" Victoria teasingly asked before she slowly backed up and quickly turned around, running around the mansion, in the dress, as Barnabas gave chase.

"I am serious, Victoria! Don't even think about scaring me ever again!" Barnabas shouted as he kept his eyes on the prize, his prize, while he swiftly went through each corner of the hallways, intending on catching his girlfriend who is trying to lose him. Realizing that the wild goose chase was going to get him nowhere, Barnabas instead made sure that Victoria wasn't watching as he used some of his vampire speed to catch up to the love of his life.

Victoria kept on running, and laughing, until Barnabas came up from behind her and trapped her in his embrace. "Gotcha." He chuckled, making sure that Victoria wasn't going to escape before he locked his lips with hers.

Author's Note: If you see anything missing in this one-set, please let me know so that I can re-enhance it for your amusement. I hope you liked this. Only one more one-set to go for me. Maybe I should let you vote on what the one-set should be, if you have any ideas. I will wait patiently before I decide to write it.