Chapter title from "Girl" by Jukebox the Ghost (because it's me and I'm not writing a Jukebox fic without Jukebox the Ghost)

February 2016

When the buzzer in his apartment goes off on a Monday night, Luke is confused. Not just Luke.

"Do you have friends who aren't us?" Reggie gapes at him in shock.

"Reggie, rude." Alex chastises him. Then grins. "You know he has two whole other friends."

Luke wants to roll his eyes at them but they're not wrong. Six months into this afterlife thing, his social circle is still limited to four people, and two of them are already in his apartment. He and Flynn haven't really reached the "drop by uninvited" stage of friendship, so he assumes the person on the other side of the buzzer is Julie. But that doesn't make sense either, because he and Julie don't hang out unless it's Slayer business, and it's a Monday. Julie has been adamant about taking every Monday off from her nightly patrols for vampires to spend with her dad.

He taps his intercom button. "Hello?"

"Patterson, can I come up?" The speaker is crackly, but behind the horrible sound quality, it sounds like she's about to cry. Reggie and Alex, who sit at Luke's dining room table, exchange a worried glance.

"Yeah, of course." He buzzes her up, then shoots a quizzical look at Reggie.

"She and Dad were supposed to go bowling tonight. That's all I know."

There's a knock on the door and Luke opens it to reveal the trembling eighteen-year-old Slayer. She gives him a quivering smile, which stills when she notices Alex and Reggie. "I didn't know you guys hung out."

"We're friends. Friends hang out." She raises a pointed eyebrow at that. Luke doesn't hang out with Julie, and he's pretty sure she knows that isn't an accident.

"I guess I assumed you spent all your free time just sitting in your apartment in silence."

In spite of the tension of the situation, Alex and Reggie burst out laughing.

"Oh," Alex clarifies. "He used to. It was too sad. We had to intervene."

Luke gives her an encouraging smile. "See, Mom, I made friends at school." He nudges his shoulder towards her—if he were corporeal, he would have made contact with her shoulder in a playful nudge, but over the past few months, he's gotten really good at avoiding getting too close to Julie, because going through her is just a painful reminder that he's dead.

Julie slips into his apartment, stopping short when she realizes what's on the table. "Magic: The Gathering?"

"Every Monday!" Reggie grins.

Luke tenses, waiting for the teasing to start. But she smacks Reggie gently on the arm. "Why didn't you tell me? Four of us, we could have done two-headed giant!"

"You play Magic?" Luke asks.

"Who do you think taught Reggie? Ooh!" She whirls around to face Luke, almost running through him. He stops short, very aware of their proximity. But she doesn't move away. "I bet I can guess what colors you play."

Shaking his head playfully, he crosses his arms across his chest. "I bet you can't."

"Alex has gotta be white-green."

Luke tries not to let his face react, trying desperately to remain mysterious. "Why?"

"Because white-green is basically the Hufflepuff of Magic. It's, 'please don't hurt me, why can't we all just be friends?, I'm going to hide behind this giant dinosaur.'"

Alex nods. "It's true, this game stresses me out."

"Cheating cause I already know, but Reggie does any combo of green, blue, and red. But he never uses black, and he rarely does white, because he hates playing around with his life total."

"I'm not a god, I wasn't meant to have that kind of power."

Alex shoots a finger gun at Reggie. "You mean you're not a planeswalker."

Her brother shakes his head. "Alex, you haven't been playing long enough to make those kind of references."

"That's fair."

"I'm not saying you're wrong. Just, know your place."

"And what about me?" Luke draws Julie's attention back to him.

"Red, obviously." She studies him for a moment. "I feel like you dabble in red-blue, maybe even red-white, but your heart belongs to red-black."

"Why red-black?"

"Because you're impulsive, relentless, ambitious, and passionate."

What a rudely accurate summary of him. And yet: "I don't act impulsive."

"That's the tragedy of you as a Watcher, don't you see? You have to be level-headed and patient, when really you just want to burn down everything that stands in your way as quickly as you can."

In moments like these, Luke wonders what life would have been if he hadn't died. No one back in the 90s ever made him feel quite as seen as Julie does. Would he have spent his entire life known as the precocious, level-headed, patient Watcher? Would anyone ever have looked him in the eye and seen the fire and drive within?

He smiles, and concedes. "I'm red-black." He lets her do a tiny victory dance before he asks, "Do you wanna talk about it, or do you want a distraction?"

Julie groans loudly, but she turns to her brother. "Dad knows about me."

Reggie's jaw drops. "What?"

"A vamp attacked us in the parking lot and… he of all people knows what it looks like when a Slayer fights a vampire."

Luke reaches out to put his hand on her shoulder, but pulls back at the last second. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah."

"What did he say?"

Hugging herself, Julie goes silent for a moment. "That I'm not allowed to be the Slayer."

"Why haven't we tried that?" Reggie asks sarcastically. "No more destiny for you, Julie. You're forbidden."

"Apparently I'm grounded for having 'stopped an apocalypse without his permission.' Which is so hypocritical because you failed a math test last week and you just got a talking to!"

"Benefits of being undead. They really don't expect much from me anymore." Reggie keeps his tone light, but Luke knows, from the gallows humor and the occasional heartfelt comment that Reggie lets slip, how bitter he is about being a vampire. The Molina family may have welcomed the ensouled vampire back with open arms, filling the house with blackout curtains and enrolling him in an online high school, but none of that returned Reggie's life to what it was.

"Ray had the same reaction to Rose," Luke admits.

Julie's head whips around to him. He's slowly started talking about Rose more as the months between her death (in his mind) and the present grow, but it's still tremendously painful, and he knows that he talks about her mother less than she wants him to.

"He… grounded her?"

"Obviously no, but there was a lot of 'relationships are supposed to be about compromise, why don't I get a say in this?' More aimed at the universe than at her. He'll come around eventually. He knows… that he doesn't really get a say."

Julie gestures wildly. "I can't wait for that! Caleb is planning something, and I can't be locked in my bedroom when the Big Bad makes his move."

"Does he know about Luke?" Reggie asks.

"No, I thought 'also my Watcher is my dead mom's old Watcher' might be piling on. I was… thinking that maybe I could stay here with you for a bit?" she asks Luke, shy. "I'd go to Flynn or Alex, but those are the first places he'll look."

On a delay, he nods. "Of course. Whatever you need."

"And in the meantime, Mom and I will try to talk to him." Reggie smiles encouragingly at his sister.

She hugs him, resting her chin on the top of his head. "Thanks, Reg."

"Of course, Little Dude."

"Three months younger."

"Still counts, now and always. Now, who wants to play Magic?"

Four hours later, after Julie has handed all of them their asses on the tabletop battlefield, she sits on Luke's bed, curled up on herself under his blanket. It's an image that sticks with him in a way he doesn't really understand. It's not like he's terribly attached to his bed, or even spends that much time in it. He doesn't sleep, but he enjoys the comfort and normalcy of being able to lie down and think sometimes, and there are times, like now, when it comes in handy. But it's never felt like an intimate place to him before, so it shouldn't feel intimate now that she's in it.

As he hands her a pile of towels, Julie takes them with one hand, continuing to play with the chain of her necklace with the other. She takes in the bookshelves stuffed with old tomes and leather journals, and her eyes linger questioningly on the guitar in the corner.

"You know that protection amulet's a piece of crap, right?" Luke asks. "I was literally wearing it when I died."

"You're still here. And it brought me to you." The softness with which she says it makes him feel warm in his chest. "Maybe protection amulets work in mysterious ways."

She pats the bed next to her. He hesitates but... he's a ghost—does it matter where in the room he is? Trying not to betray his nervousness, he sits gingerly on the edge of the mattress and makes eye contact with her. She's holding his gaze, contemplative. "What?"

"Do you ever think about your unfinished business?"

"What do you mean?"

"At some point you'll want to move on, right? So you'll need to complete your unfinished business. Do you know what it is?"

He pauses, mind whirring. "Joining a band." She snorts. "My parents wanted me to be a Watcher. I had a different plan for my life. I was gonna headline around the globe as Dingoes Ate My Baby."

"Dingoes Ate My Baby?"

"Hey, it was a topical reference at the time." Off her look: "Okay, it wasn't."

She scrutinizes him. "Rock band?" He nods. "Actually I can picture it. The sleeveless shirts make a little more sense in that context."

"How's that?"

"Thirst trap to get a following."

"What's a thirst trap?"

She laughs and shoots him a look he can't decipher. A look he likes even if he doesn't understand it. "Live in the world a little, Patterson."

"Thanks for reminding me of my painful death, Molina."

Grinning, she shakes her head. He can never quite get a read on her reaction whenever he makes jokes about his death. His death itself, she can handle. She's never known him alive. But his death is linked to her mother's death, and he's never had the courage, nor have they ever been close enough, to ask her if she's able to separate them.

"Okay, so, you'll join a band. Do I get tickets to the gig?"

"You're not allowed anywhere near my gigs."

"You can't stop me, Patterson. I'm imbued with the preternatural strength of an unbroken lineage of the guardians of humanity. I can definitely take out a bouncer."

"Oh, I'm not gonna perform while you're alive."

"Thank you for reminding me of my inevitable untimely death, Patterson."

"As the ancient prophecy states, karma's a bitch, dude."

They've moved closer in their banter and he's aware that, if he weren't a ghost, he would be able to feel the heat of her body.

She shakes her head again, then seems to fall into thought. Which he really doesn't want her to do on this particular topic. He's pretty sure that his unfinished business is actually to save the Slayer. And the reality is that he never will. He won't be able to save Julie, and then after Julie, another Slayer will rise, and she will get a painfully short life before being brutally murdered by the forces of darkness, and then another Slayer will rise and on and on. And throughout it all will be Luke, unable to change or help or move on. It's a miserable enough thing to bear himself—he'll never put it on her.

"What about you? Before being called, did you know what you wanted to do with your life?"

Suddenly shy, she tucks a curl behind her ear. "Singer-songwriter, actually."

"What? How did I not know you could sing?"

"Everyone can sing, Patterson, don't be elitist."

"Okay, how did I not know you had a killer voice?"

"Because I can't slay demons with a high C, so you never asked."

It's a direct hit, and it's fair. He's always tried to keep them focused on slaying stuff, holding her at a distance, so it's somehow managed to escape his notice until tonight that she's a passionate geek and apparently a singer. If she asks him to guess what Magic colors she tends to play, he'll probably guess wrong. Six months of hiding himself from her, and he knows almost nothing about his Slayer.

"I'm sorry." There's a lot behind that sorry, a lot that he doesn't know how to articulate in a way that won't remind her of the reality of her destiny.

But she knows. "I get it, but—"

"It's still not fair."

"You're the person who's going to be there the most for the rest of my life." He tries to ignore how borderline romantic the sentiment is. "It would be nice if you knew me, that's all. If we could be friends."

"We are friends." She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. "Okay. Friends?"

He sticks out his hand. She reaches out to take it, but her hand falls through his. Her eyes shoot to his, apologetic. "I'm sorr—" A smirk spreads across his face. "You did that on purpose? You always say it's rude when I do that to you!"

"It is rude when you do it to me. It's funny when I do it to you."

"I regret ever asking you to be my Watcher."

"Oh, you didn't ask, you begged. You're stuck with me."

"Good." She grins at him. It's pretty damn infectious, and he's overwhelmed by a strange impulse to just sit there smiling at her.

Obviously, that would be a super weird thing to do. Definitely don't do that. So he pops to his feet and grabs his guitar from its stand. "I wanna hear this voice. Pick a song."

"Any song?"

"Any song you think you would slay."

"'Heart of My Own,' Basia Bulat?"

"Can you get me the tabs on your small internet device?"

"I know you know it's called a smartphone."

While he tunes his guitar, she pulls up guitar tabs and passes her phone to him.

"Yeah, this looks doable. You ready?"

She nods and he begins to play. The instant she starts to sing, a clear, powerful soprano, he's hooked. Somewhere in the part of him that used to have a heart, he feels something clench, as if joy is being compressed into a tiny burning flame. Something he's not felt since before he died. If he's being honest, something he's never felt.

Julie stays for three weeks, and Luke hasn't even thought about her leaving until the night that Reggie, Alex, and Flynn come over to watch Galavant and Reggie asks, "So, are you just gonna live here now?"

Julie and Luke's eyes meet across the living room. He shrugs, a nonverbal "you can stay as long as you need." Julie tosses a piece of popcorn at her brother. "Why, you miss me?"

"Yes! Mom has started to say that I should 'try to make something of my life.' I've tried to explain that I'm dead and that that ship has sailed, but she's claiming that it's 'not relevant.'" He wheels on Luke. "Are your parents this flippant about your death?"

"Nah, my parents go the other way. Every time they see me, they cry, so we don't hang out much."

Flynn kicks Reggie's foot, but he raises his hands defensively. "How was I supposed to know his answer would be sad?"

"Because he's dead, you doof!"

"Alex, please defend me."

Alex, who has been texting up a storm all night, looks up blankly. "I probably agree with Flynn, but to be fair, I wasn't listening."

Julie grins. "Ooh, I see that face. Who are you texting?"

"Um…"

"Willie," Flynn answers.

Alex gasps dramatically. "You traitor, you weren't going to tell them!"

"I literally never made that promise."

"Wait," Reggie puts together the pieces, "Willie, as in the vengeance demon who owns the demon bar?"

"Okay, 1) he's a reformed vengeance demon, 2) he's mortal now, and 3) his hair is… very luscious."

Flynn shakes her hands at Alex in despair. "You keep saying the third thing like it's just as important as the first two, and that concerns me."

"Well, he's teaching me to do magic, and I learn best from pretty people."

Julie leans forward to rest her chin on her fists and waggles her eyebrows. "Oh, he's teaching you magic, is he?"

Flynn laughs. "Do you have any idea how many texts I get about how they 'cast spells together late at night?'"

Julie whirls on Alex. "Why is she getting all the deep dish before me?"

"Because I don't want you to slay him!"

"I don't just go around slaying people! Has he done something actually wrong?"

Alex answers gingerly. "Apparently he once cursed a Potential to live as a quokka because she accused her neighbor of being a witch."

"A Potential?" Julie looks between Alex and Luke.

"Potential Slayer," Luke answers. "The girls around the world who could become Slayers."

Reggie cuts in. "Wait, a quokka? That doesn't really seem like a punishment."

"Yeah, I don't get the sense that he was all that great at seeking vengeance? But he is really great at magic." Julie, Reggie, and Flynn raise synchronized suggestive eyebrows. "Literal magic, guys!"

As the group falls into ribbing Alex about his potential relationship with Willie, Luke finds himself watching Julie's face. When she thinks no one's looking, sadness creeps onto it, a sadness that he's been ignoring in favor of enjoying his time with her.

It's time for her to go home. And it seems like he may have to make the first move.

"Somehow, I should have known you were involved with this." Ray scrutinizes Luke over his cup of tea. It had taken the ghost a while to convince the man to speak with him—Luke opted for poofing into the house in order to establish clearly that he wasn't a vampire, but it turned out that that was, in fact, "absolutely fucking horrifying." Ray had needed time to calm down, and even longer once the word "Watcher" had come into the conversation.

"I'm sorry. It's not fair. Two Slayers in one family is unprecedented, if that helps."

"It does not." Ray leans back and studies him. "So, you're here to convince me that my daughter needs to go out and fight demons every night?"

"No. Here to remind you that you don't really get a choice." Ray buries his face in his hands, which at least makes it a little easier for Luke to talk to him, because he really can't take the tears. "There's an apocalypse coming in the next few weeks. If Julie isn't there to stop it, then best-case scenario, she dies the day of. Worst-case, she spends the rest of eternity being tortured in some gnarly hell dimension. I know it doesn't seem like it, but Julie fighting is actually her best chance of survival."

Ray lifts his tear-covered face. "As a father, is that what I'm supposed to do? Just let my little girl go out and risk her life every night?"

What can Luke even say to that? "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry, but."

"Julie's gonna fight. That's who she is." Ray opens his mouth, but Luke cuts him off. "I'm not talking about the Slayer, I'm talking about Julie doing the right thing no matter what. If you don't let her be the Slayer, then you won't get to be in her life. That's the deal. The way I see it, better to have her in your life as the Slayer, spend every single moment with her that you can, than not have her in your life at all." He realizes belatedly that he might as well be talking to himself three weeks ago. "But that's a choice you gotta make for yourself."

He finally lets his eyes slide to Ray. The man sags his head into his hands again, but he nods.

They sit in silence for a long moment.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Ray murmurs.

Luke starts. It's the first time anyone's ever said it, ever acknowledged his loss. When people talk about his death, the focus tends to be on the living people, like his parents, that he left behind. There's genuine emotion causing a tremble in Luke's voice as he replies, "Thank you."

Ray finally drops his hands. "I don't blame you."

"I tend to show up with the worst news and ask the people you love to put their lives on the line. I don't blame you for blaming me."

Keeping his gaze on his cup of tea, Ray shakes his head. A long pause, then: "Did she suffer? The coroner said she didn't, but I never believed it."

The question should surprise Luke, but it doesn't. "It wasn't painless. But it was fairly quick." Luke's voice trails off, the memory of Rose yanking the axe out of her chest playing in his mind. "She was… so brave. I've never seen anything like it."

Ray smiles, his face wet. "That was my Rose." He heaves a sigh. "Sometimes Julie reminds me so much of her." But it isn't a good thing.

"Yeah." Luke is struck by the pain of it—every time Julie reminds him of her mother, she reminds him of how similar their fates are. It's impossible to appreciate their similarities without fearing those similarities. "I want you to know that I'll protect her with my… whatever it is I have now. Existence? I can't make any promises about what happens to her, but I can promise that I'm always gonna value her safety more than I value my own."

"Ah yes, because she's the all-important Slayer."

"No, because she's Julie."

Ray shoots him a sharp glance, and it's like he's seeing something in Luke that Luke himself isn't yet prepared to see. The ghost squirms. He almost wants to ask, but… he needs to project himself as the competent Watcher, totally in control, to instill whatever confidence he can.

All Ray says is "I guess we'll see."

Luke knocks on the door of his own apartment. When Julie answers, confused, he steps aside to reveal Ray.

"Dad?"

Ray stays firmly in the hallway. "I have two conditions: I don't want to hear about Slayer stuff in the house. And you're still going to college, mija."

Julie's head nods at a mile a minute. "Okay."

"Then get your stuff. We're going back home."

She grins and sweeps him in a hug. With tears in his eyes, he wraps his arms tightly around his daughter.

Julie bounds back to Luke's bedroom to get her things. Ray follows her with his eyes, taking in the clearly one bedroom apartment, and shoots Luke a scathing look that terrifies him more than any vampire he's ever faced. Rather than spend a single second longer in Ray's very intense presence, Luke poofs into his room.

Julie glances up from the backpack she's in the middle of packing and grins. "You went to my dad. That desperate to get rid of me, huh?"

"No, I just…"

"Luke, I'm kidding." It's the first time she's called him Luke to his face, and if he didn't know better, he'd think he was blushing.

"Figured he could use an ear. Sometimes Slayer stuff is just harder to talk about with the actual Slayer."

That reminds him… As she zips up her backpack, he rifles through his bookshelf and pulls out a leather-bound journal.

"What's that?"

He approaches her cautiously. "I know you want to know more about your mom. I wish I could talk about her, but it's-"

"I get it."

"No, you don't, cause I don't talk about it." Her face softens at his honesty. "I didn't have any siblings and my parents… they kinda forced me into the Watcher gig, and then I died on the job, and now we can't really talk because they feel so damn guilty about it. Your mom, she was like a sister to me. She was my best friend and the first person who ever made me feel the way that I hear family is supposed to make you feel and I just… I'm not ready yet." Julie is giving him that look again, the look she gives him when she wants to hug him. He holds out the journal to her. "But she's your family too, and you deserve to know her."

"What's this?"

"Watchers' diary. We keep journals of everything our Slayers do in the line of duty. Battles they fight, demons and magic they encounter."

Like she's holding an ancient sacred text, she strokes the cover delicately. "Her entire life as a Slayer," she breathes.

"Not quite. I wasn't the best at keeping it updated, and my handwriting's also… it's not great. But there's still a lot in there."

She hugs it to her chest, making the same face she made when she hugged her dad. Then she seems to realize the implications of what he's said.

"Do you keep a diary about me?"

"Yeah."

"Can I read it?"

"Hell no." She grins mischievously at him, and it warms his chest. "Someday though, we'll talk about your mom. All the stuff I didn't write down. I promise."

"Thank you. For letting me stay, for my dad," she nods to the living room, "for my mom." She lifts up the journal. "This was perfect." She reaches out for his hand and even though he knows better, he reaches out for her. But obviously her hand goes through his.

She huffs and bounces on her feet. Unamused, he chuckles. "This is an interesting little relationship you and I have."

As she starts to turn away, he feels a tug to prolong the moment. "Wait: Magic: The Gathering."

"What about it?"

"Two things. One, if the guys and I move game night to Tuesdays, do you wanna join?"

Her face lights up in one of those million-watt smiles that he feels would actually be doing damage to his heart if he still had one. "No more patrolling cemeteries for rogue vampires on Tuesdays?"

"Game night, then patrolling. I will even come with you."

Another of those smiles. "Okay. What's the second thing?"

"Your color combo. White-blue?"

She smiles again. Not the million-watt smile, but something softer and more private. If he had to guess, he'd imagine that this was what his face looked like when she knew his playstyle. "Yeah, I'm white-blue."

Episodes of Buffy referenced in this chapter:
• "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date"
• The "I probably agree with Flynn, but to be fair, I wasn't listening" is my version of Giles' line in "Shadow" because I'm not going to write something in the Buffyverse and not include that line