Oops, I might have been more than a little drunk and a little angsty, and there was Julia looking so spectacularly like my favorite character ever and offering to let me be all angsty on her to feel better myself. Thank you Julia, you continue to be my favorite character of all time if I do take out my un edited drunken angst on you.
And no, obviously nothing of Dark Shadows belongs to me. If it did I would be the happiest person ever and none of the various incarnations of Julia ever would have died. Not even Grayson in HODS.
You would drink too.
If you were to spend every day trapped in a decaying manor, so dark and dusty you could hardly see yourself, surrounded by neurotic assholes who continually poured all of their moans and groans onto you expecting you to take it without complaint because you're "the doctor" that's what you're there for. The only person in the house who wasn't a terrible excuse for a human being was the poor little boy, David.
But even sweet little David didn't ask her about her day, or about her own feelings. For every time he would lighten her heart with a story about his dinosaurs, animatedly acting out whatever tale he had to tell, there were three times that he would barge in, wide-eyed and sulking going on about his dead mother. She didn't fault him for that, or rather she knew that she shouldn't fault him for that. But much as she knew what she should do, after a few years of it solid (the only reprieve being brief trips into the dead little town of Collinsport- she could never escape the looming omnipresence of that damned family) it got very very old.
And really, who could fault Julia for drinking a bit before dinner to prepare herself for it?
Could anyone blame her when every meal consisted of a charred hunk of meat served with Roger leering at her, Carolyn alternately pouting or screaming, Willie all but throwing the food on the table as David sullenly shuffled food across his plate, with Elizabeth watching over it all with rolling eyes and heavy sighs as she alone apparently bore the weight of all this wretchedness on her shoulders.
Until of course Vicky, perfect little simple Vicky showed up. Really, Julia didn't think anything could be worse than this collection of lunatics needing and watching her constantly, until of course, Vicky was there and everyone was watching and needing her. Suddenly they stopped hunting her down at all hours to complain, and the leers and jabs at meal time were all but gone.
But Julia could really enjoy her new found freedom for all of two days before the loneliness set it. And the jealousy, particularly where their new cousin Barnabas was concerned, but mainly, the loneliness.
Because she was alone.
Not just left by herself in a rotting old manor, but, truly, in life, alone.
She didn't have a husband, and it had been ages since she had had a lover. Med school and specialties in psychiatry and hematology didn't leave a lot of time for dating. She didn't have any family anymore, and voer the last three years she had all but lost contact with any friends and acquaintances outside of Collinwood.
She was aging, and bitter and utterly alone.
You would drink too if you were Julia Hoffman.