Disclaimer: Dan Curtis owns Dark Shadows. This is especially important because this is the chapter with probably the most scenes ripped straight off the series. Bear with me…it'll get pretty AU soon!

Chapter Two: Fright and Forgiveness

The last few days had been the most horrific of Barnabas's life. A week ago, he had discovered that his wife had been the cause of all the misery that had befallen their family. Now he was a corpse…and a monster.

The shock of his new life had not yet worn off, and Barnabas had harbored the thought that it might never do so. Every moment seemed to be the present, and every moment was therefore lacerated with the horror, grief, and self-loathing he felt at the present time. There was no promise of relief from the emotional storm on the horizon, no inkling of red in the black clouds. Years from those first few days, he would say that he had very little recollection of them, because they did not feel at all real; rather, they felt like a horrific day dream.

And so, the third night after he had first awoken to his new life, he stumbled back to the mausoleum, barely aware of the path he was taking, after feeding at the docks. His mind roiled with the recollection of sinking his fangs into flesh and the altercation that had been held between his conscious and unconscious mind, with the former screaming at the obscenity of what he was doing and the latter begging mercilessly for more.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to fast, Barnabas promised himself. His inner voice seemed louder these days, clanging up against the sides of his skull—as if it was trying to drown out the tumult of emotions roiling just beneath the surface. Tomorrow, no one will be killed at the docks.

But he knew instinctually that this would not work forever, as an animal, from human to street cur, cannot look forward to an entire life without food. Barnabas highly doubted that a fast would kill him, or whatever it was that this body did when the mind ceased to function for eternity, but that was not the matter in question. The body thought it would die, and the body seemed to win the fight between logic and instinct every time.

Upon reaching the mausoleum, Barnabas opened the iron gated entrance with a sigh. He could already smell that Ben was not here, and the thought made him belatedly, numbly disappointed. The only thing worse than coming back in the dawn to find Ben there was coming back to find him absent. Barnabas craved the company to remind himself that he was still real, but always found himself ill-equipped to act socially when his craving was fulfilled. Ben—sweet, kind Ben—seemed to understand, though, and often stayed with him late into the night to suffer through the long hours with him. But he was probably asleep now. God knows he hadn't gotten nearly enough in the last few days.

Barnabas moved toward the secret room, then paused. Ben might not be there, but there was another smell—an incredibly familiar one, although it had never been so strong before. One that made the small amount of blood he had swell to his heart automatically.

Then came the voice, which, despite its smallness, nearly undid Barnabas. "Who's there?" He whirled around to face none other than—

"Sarah," his voice came out in a whisper fraught with many emotions—devotion, grief, and more than a hint of fear.

His sister's voice, however, held only one of these emotions. "Barnabas! I've been waiting and waiting—"

"You should be home," Barnabas said, beginning to pace like a caged animal. Another habit that had magically appeared after his transformation. He turned his face away, lest she see the remnants of his latest kill on his face. It took every bit of strength not too look into those eyes, eyes which he hadn't seen for nearly a week and had thought he would never look into again.

"I feel asleep," she said, and he could hear the rustle of her nightgown as she stood up. The sweet innocence in her voice made Barnabas close his eyes in a pained grimace.

"You must go home." He forced the words out of his mouth, even though he desperately wanted her here, in his arms.

"Take me home," she pleaded, and it was all he could do not to turn and bundle her up to his now cold chest. Yes, anything for you, my dearest, my sweetest—

"Sarah," he choked.

"Please carry me home. I'm so sleepy." With his preternatural sense of hearing, he knew by the sound of flesh upon flesh that she had rubbed an eye. Always the charming little actress. What a love.

"Sarah…listen to me…" Every word was painful. How did he tell her that it was not her, that walking her home was the only thing he wanted to do in that fleeting moment? "I can't."

"Why?"

It was the hurt so evident in her voice that finally forced him to turn. He was already damned, but he would be even more so if the last memory Sarah had of him was one of negligence and apathy, so wholly opposed to what he truly felt.

There was another problem as well. No one would believe the child, but he could not let her run around telling everyone that she'd seen her brother, almost a week in the grave, walking around the grounds. "You must tell no one you've seen me," he pleaded, his voice bordering on sternness as he stared into those wide brown eyes.

Which now contained nothing but pure terror. Then the tears came, pooling above her lower lids. "You aren't Barnabas, you aren't!"

Too late, Barnabas realized what she had seen—a monster wearing her brother's face. Barnabas felt he could have burst into tears himself at that moment, knowing that that would most likely be Sarah's last memory of him. Forgetting all precautions, he pleaded, "I am, I am!"

But this only made matters worse. "No!" Sarah screamed, ducking out of his shadow and throwing her small body out of the mausoleum. The sound was contorted, shrill—it ripped through Barnabas's heart.

"Sarah! Don't go!" he begged. But he did not race after her. Racing after her would only make her react in a way that would destroy Barnabas once and for all, and he was not prepared to submit himself to that final humiliation. After countless nights of trying to convince his beloved little sister that there were no monsters under her bed, he was not prepared to be one of her nightmares. But neither could he allow her to stay out all night in the coming storm.

But it wasn't nighttime. The dawn was approaching, and with it Barnabas's inevitable captivity. But he couldn't think about that—there was a more important task at hand than grieving over the fact that he would never see sunshine again. "There's so little time! Sarah!" he cried desperately.

But it was of no use. She was gone, and, for once in his life, Barnabas was utterly powerless to come to her aid.

"Sarah!" Ben called. "Sarah!" He thundered through the undergrowth that littered the forest of the Collinwood grounds. "Sarah!" He knew it was hopeless—he could barely hear his own voice over the rasping of his breath and the pounding of his feet and heart. What made him think he would be able to hear Sarah's tiny one?

But he had to keep trying. One look at Mrs. Collins's pleading, worried face had made the decision more than Mr. Collins's thundering order to search the woods until the girl was found ever could have. In the short year that Ben had been at Collinwood, he had developed a strong dislike and fear of the master of the house. However, he had found with little surprise (he supposed it was in his pathetically soft nature) that this had made the rest of the Collins family rise in his estimation all the more. He felt nothing but sympathy for the family matriarch, who, as far as he could tell, bore the brunt of her husband's apathy and short temper and treated others none the worse for it. And Master Barnabas—he had proven to be nothing like his father, with the exception of a frightening ability to change moods quite abruptly. But it was he who had seen potential in Ben, had taught him how to write his letters—and had therefore given him a glimmer of hope when he finally was let loose into the world after his prison term was through. But Sarah—Sarah was adorable, plain and simple. Most children of her age were far from innocent, a word often misused to describe them. But, despite having been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she bore none of the haughtiness that so many children of her class did. She was nothing but kind and loving, and Ben would never forgive himself if that sweet little girl were to fall ill due to any failing on his part.

As he continued his frantic calls, he had the odd feeling that they were being echoed back to him. He paused in both his running and his calling to listen. The voice continued. "Sarah! I didn't mean to frighten you! I'll take you home, I promise!" it cried in the distance. Then he recognized it. With some amount of confusion, he continued, crunching over fallen twigs and leaves until he came upon Barnabas.

It was still shocking to see him after three days of getting used to the younger man's appearance. He was pale—pale in a very sickly way, as if he was still suffering from a fever and should be in bed. Purpled bags lay thickly under his eyes, making both his eyes and cheeks look frighteningly hallow. He didn't look like the monster Ben knew him to be—to the contrary, he looked too weak to walk. And yet here he was, calling franticly for his child sister.

As Ben approached, the characteristics that marked Barnabas apart from a sickly man became more obvious. He did not shiver, sweat, or pant in the way that he had in the days before…his death. In fact, he stood unbelievably still, as if any movement not made with conscious thought was not worth the effort at all. Moreover, his entire body exuded an aura of tranquility and strength—although one look at Barnabas's face made it clear that that was not how the younger man was feeling at that moment. With a shiver, Ben stepped forward to bring himself to Barnabas's attention. As much as his mind told him that it was unjust to treat Barnabas any differently than he had before what he now thought of as "the Change", the sight of his corpse-like, fanged…he supposed he would call him friend, at that, sent an instinctual shimmer of fear up his spine.

"Ben," Barnabas said upon noticing him.

"What are you doin' here?" Ben asked.

Barnabas gave a half-hearted shrug under the Inverness cape Ben had thought to bring him yesterday. "I'm trying to find her, too," he said nervously.

What? "Are you crazy?!"

"Ben," Barnabas interrupted hurriedly, "please—"

Ben grabbed Barnabas's arms, for a moment forgetting that he was clutching the arms of a dead man. "Do you want your family to find ya? What about all the townsfolk that are after the Collinsport Strangler? You want them to find ya?"

He watched with mild satisfaction as Barnabas shirked at his new pet name. He moved away, a habit Ben recognized. It was Barnabas's way of removing himself from a tense situation. That, at least, had remained the same—as a living man, Barnabas had usually, in a flash decision, chosen instinctually flight over fight. Ben waited patiently as the younger man turned to the underbrush to gather his thoughts. "Ben, it was my fault. She's lost because of me. She-she followed me."

"Followed ya?"

"From Collinwood.

Ben moved closer to Barnabas. This was ridiculous. "You went to the house?"

"Only—because I had to see Josette. Just see her."

Wonderful. Ben had mistakenly told him that Josette and the Countess were leaving within the week, and he had taken it upon himself to go and rip his heart out below her window. Ben sighed. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to be angry at Barnabas on this score. "Anybody see ya besides Sarah?"

"No. I didn't go in. Sarah…saw me from a window and…she ran out. As soon as she saw me, I turned and ran."

Ben's next question was out of his mouth before Barnabas was finished. "Where'd ya go?"

Barnabas's expression was one of shame. "Well, I—"

"Did she follow ya into the mausoleum?"

"I don't know. I went out there but I didn't go in."

Ben's stomach dropped to his feet. "Where did ya go?"

"I went to the village."

Just as he had feared. He tried to hide the revulsion on his face, but he knew it was too late. The silence beside him was eventually broken by Barnabas's quavering, quiet voice. "Don't turn away from me, Ben. I'm not responsible for what's happened to me." But it didn't come out as a sentence. It came out more like a question. He wanted assurance.

And Ben would give it to him. "I know that." How could he not? No matter what had happened between him and Angelique, the punishment she had given him in no way could have possibly fit the crime. And he knew Barnabas. He had seen him tend to his ill sister, had seen him fret over Josette's arrival with all of the emotional stability of a smitten schoolboy, had seen him sit patiently for hours, giving Ben what was, for all intents and purposes, a free education. And now he drank blood. But he didn't want to. And Ben felt it his personal duty to help him get through this. "You'd best go back to the mausoleum, it's…it's getting' light."

Barnabas turned abruptly towards the eastern sky. "Light! She knows me well, my wife, to put a curse on me that I must live eternally by night. Live. What a mockery I make of that word. For I am truly dead, aren't I?"

Ben didn't know how to respond to this maudlin statement. Sometimes over the last few days, he felt himself on the verge of snapping at Barnabas for his constant out pouring of grief and self-pity. But he bit his lip every time, because he couldn't help but think that if he was faced with the thought of never seeing the sun again, he might indulge in a little self-pity, too. He placed a hand on Barnabas's shoulder. "I'll take ya back."

"No."

"You won't go without me, I know that."

"I want you to keep continuing to look for Sarah." Barnabas looked up at the sky again. "The storm is getting nearer, where can she be?"

"I'll find her," Ben attempted to calm him. "You take care a' yourself, it's almost dawn."

Once again, Barnabas transformed into the worried elder brother that he truly was. "Promise you won't stop, until she's alright."

"Aye, that's a promise."

Barnabas nodded, looking slightly relieved. With that, he moved out from under Ben's hand and made his way back to the mausoleum. Ben continued his calling, disconcertingly hollow in the nighttime air.

Sarah raced through the underbrush, her hair flying out from under her bonnet and her nightgown catching in the brambles surrounding her. But she did not stop. She had to get home, she had to—if only to get away from that demon that had so cruelly taken her brother's face. It was as if all of her nightmares had come to life. She would have been terrified if she had seen a creature in the woods, blood streaming from its mouth—but this was no creature. It was worse. It was her brother. She felt as if a best friend had lied to her—all the times he had come home from the shipyard and she had run straight into his arms, all the times he had tucked her into bed—and he was a monster.

She had to get home.

But there was a problem—she didn't know the way home. In her terror, she had paid no attention to where she was going. Realizing this, she stopped and looked around. Trees with dying leaves clinging to them, twigs, and darkness as far as the eye could see. She gave a small whimper.

She was lost, and the demon with her brother's face would find her. She had to hide. But where? Her eyes scanned the surroundings, finally alighting on a small headstone.

That's where dead people are buried, she thought with some trepidation. After the night she had had, she didn't want to go there. But then she thought of the demon, and swallowed the lump in her throat. She would have to. She curled into a fetal position behind the headstone and waited.

She waited for what seemed like an eternity, while the storm that had been a cloud on the horizon when she had been at the mausoleum crashed around her. Thunder and lightning split the sky, and rain that felt like sleet drenched her already muddy nightgown.

A faint rustling broke through the relentless noise, accompanied by a movement in the shadows. Sarah froze. Then the shadow moved into the moonlight, and Sarah stifled a scream.

The demon had followed her. She didn't want to look, she couldn't. She wouldn't watch as her brother stalked through the clearing like a predator.

Halfway through the clearing, right next to Sarah's hiding place, the demon paused, stiffening as Sarah had seen her father's hunting dogs do countless times when they had caught a scent. She closed her eyes, praying that it wouldn't find her.

Her prayer was answered. The demon moved on, leaving Sarah once more alone in the storm.

Barnabas clung to the wired gate of the mausoleum the next night, lost in worry and guilt. Barnabas was beside himself with anxiety—what if Sarah had fallen ill? At Sarah's age, a disease could be very dangerous, even fatal. Even at his age—he still remembered those hazy days he had spent lying in bed, tossing and turning with fever. Of course, he supposed, looking back on it, that that had been a supernatural disease. Nevertheless, Sarah could be in grave danger, and it was all Barnabas's fault.

A rustling outside alerted him to what he had been waiting for—the arrival of Ben, hopefully with encouraging news of his sister's welfare. With a subconscious desire not to be seen—Barnabas could not tell whether it was due to the constant shame he held for himself now or just a side effect of his new condition—he slunk back to the shadowed corner. The gate creaked open and Ben entered the mausoleum. "Ben!" Barnabas called. Ben froze, then shoved his hands in his pockets, a defensive position. Barnabas normally would have been upset at this reaction to him, but his fear for Sarah took precedence. "Where have you been?" he asked urgently, desperately. "Is she—is Sarah safe?"

"I—I found her in the graveyard," Ben answered reluctantly, "hidin' behind…Mr. Jeremiah's tombstone."

"Is she alright?" When Ben did not reply, Barnabas pleaded, "Well, tell me!"

"She seemed…strange. Scared."

"But she must be over that now."

"There was a…storm. We were…caught in it."

Ben was slowly confirming his fears. "What are you trying to tell me, Ben? Is she alright?" When Ben moved away, Barnabas grew more firm. "She's alive, tell me!"

"Aye, she's that."

But she was ill. Barnabas could hear that in Ben's voice. He turned away for a moment, fighting tears, then turned back. "How bad is she, Ben?"

"Doctors said that…the turning point would come…dusk. Either she'd get better or…" Ben paused, looking lost.

"Quickly," Barnabas pleaded.

"Well, I'm tellin' ya as fast as I can!" Ben said, with a distraught movement of his hands. Then he continued, "She didn't get better yet. Your mother's…prayin' that she will."

Barnabas's voice came out soft and low. "Sarah's…going to die?" He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't. Ben nodded solemnly. Barnabas turned away, the grief threatening to swallow him. "And if she does it's my fault."

At this, Ben grabbed his shoulder in consolation. "It's the fault of that curse!" he said angrily, defiantly.

But Barnabas would not be consoled. "If she hadn't seen me she, she wouldn't have run away. "If I hadn't frightened her…If I hadn't been looking the way I was…" The memory still revolted him.

"There's nothing you can do about that now," Ben said. As if that made it any better.

"But what can I do? I…I must see Sarah."

"Oh." At this Ben shrank away. "No. Please don't."

The desperation in Ben's voice, the fear, the revulsion, snapped something in side of Barnabas. "Don't tell me what to do!" he snarled, making his way towards the gate.

"Don't!" Ben yelled, following him, arms outstretched to stop him. As if he could. "She…she can't speak."

At this, Barnabas paused and turned. "What do you mean?"

"She hasn't said a word s-since I found her."

A cool dread made its way up Barnabas's already unnaturally stiff spine. "Why not?"

Reluctantly, Ben replied, "Doctor said there's n-no reason, 'cept maybe fear."

Barnabas shuddered. "I'm responsible for that, too," he said, looking away.

"I didn't say that."

"Well, who else could be!" Barnabas cried. Then a thought settled in his mind. "If I go to her, and she sees me as she remembered me, then she knows…that she will have nothing to fear." He opened the gate, then was paused by Ben's voice.

"Wait." Barnabas turned. "You'll need my help."

For the first time since what Barnabas had begun to think of as "his turning," he felt a faint warmth in his heart. So Ben did care. He didn't help Barnabas out of fear. Granted, he may be scared, and, Barnabas thought with a stab of pain, he had every right to be so. But that didn't change the fact that he was helping Barnabas out of the goodness of his heart. "Thank you, Ben," Barnabas said quietly.

With that, the two men walked out into the night.

Sarah lay tucked in her bed, watching Cousin Millicent and Ben speak. But she wasn't listening. She was too weak to pay much attention to anything. She felt too weak to even cough, seeing as an angry fire burned up her throat every time she did so. She had never felt this sick before, and it made her scared. This was why her mother never let her go out at night, especially in a storm. Would she get so sick that she'd die like Barnabas? Because, no matter what her mother had said to her, she knew that that was what had happened. She wasn't a dim-wit. She had turned eleven today, for goodness sake! It had been the worst birthday ever, but still. She knew her mother had been trying to make her feel better by saying that Barnabas had just gone away, and for a time she had believed it, because she wanted to. She didn't want to believe that her brother, the brother she loved so much, had truly gone away, like her grandfather and the family dog. Besides, grandparents and dogs were supposed to die. Brothers weren't.

But after last night, she was certain. Barnabas was dead. And that…thing had stolen his body.

She hoped she wouldn't die. But she hoped even more that a demon wouldn't snatch her body like it had her brother's.

Finally, Millicent left. Good, Sarah thought. Her voice is annoying.

Ben approached her bedside, and Sarah offered him a weak smile. She liked Ben. He was very nice, and he said kind things to her. He had been very kind when he found her in the woods, picking her up and comforting her, keeping the rain away. But mostly she liked him because he was obviously Barnabas's very best friend. And if he was Barnabas's best friend, he must be a very good man.

Then Sarah's mind flitted back to the previous night. Her brother's pale and sickly face, smeared with blood. Barnabas wasn't good anymore. So maybe Ben wasn't, either.

When the door latched, Ben leaned even closer to her. His kindly face wiped away Sarah's previous fears. "Sarah?" He patted her shoulder gently. "You're gonna have a visitor." Sarah's smile widened. She liked visitors. They kept her mind off of her brother.

"Your brother. He wants you to know he's alright."

Or not. Sarah turned her face away. Maybe if Ben saw her distress he would be nice and make Barnabas stay away.

There was a creaking of a door she hadn't known was there before. Of course. Secret passageways. Her mother said they had been built because of a war that had happened before she'd been born. Now they were being used by the demon. The demon that looked like her brother.

She clenched her eyes shut. Maybe if she didn't look at it, it would leave. But it didn't. She heard its footsteps coming closer, closer. Quietly. Almost…tentatively.

She opened her eyes to see her brother's face near the foot of her bed. A wan smile, small and shy, perched on the demon's lips. "Hello, Sarah."

"I'll be outside," Ben said immediately.

No, don't go! Sarah thought helplessly, but it was no use. Ben was gone.

To her horror, the demon settled itself on her bed and leaned over her. Placed its arms on both sides of her body, trapping her. The stance was almost predatory. Then the demon opened its mouth to speak. But what it said was not what Sarah had been expecting.

"Sarah, I'm sorry you were frightened. I'm very sorry, Sarah," he said sincerely. He seemed to wait for her reply, and when she gave none, he continued. "I want you to get better. Promise me that you will try."

Sarah looked to the side. He was her brother. He was. No demon would have spoken to her like that. He was sorry. And he wanted her to get better. He wanted her to be well.

But even if he was her brother, he wouldn't get his wish right away. After all, he had scared her. She wanted to make him feel sad that he had been mean like that.

So she kept looking away, putting a pout on her face she knew her brother couldn't resist.

Her brother spoke more urgently, more desperately. "Sarah, please. Forgive me, I love you so."

The words came out in a rush, an outpouring of raw emotion. With that single sentence came all the memories of her brother that she held so dear—every afternoon he had spent with her when their father couldn't be around, listening to her read out of some of the family's simpler books with an expression of loving pride, lighting her candle every night before she went to bed, because she refused to sleep without it. He loved her. And she loved him. She didn't know what had happened at the mausoleum…but whatever the case, he was still her brother.

Tears pooling behind her lower lids, she squeaked the words past her raw throat. "Hold…me."

For a moment, her brother looked surprised. Then a warmth spread over his face that lit up his dark brown eyes…eyes Sarah had always heard were very much like her own, eyes they had gotten from their mother. "Yes, Sarah," he breathed, as if holding her was all he had ever wanted to do, as if he would be content to do so forever. He took her in his arms and pulled her to his chest.

They remained like that for an incredibly long time as the candle at Sarah's bedside burned down to a faint ember. Her brother's arms and chest were incredibly cold and immobile—there was no warmth or the promise of a beating heart to comfort her. But all the same, he was her brother, and as held her through the night, rubbing her back to warm her, she knew that that was enough.

She would keep her promise.

Notes: So, yeah, the scenes are pretty much all straight from Dark Shadows (except the ending, of course). That will change. Thanks to Helena Clara Bouchet for your review! Reviews and comments are welcome (including constructive criticism—tips are appreciated).