Chapter title from "I Wanna Get Better" by Bleachers

2018?

Luke remembers when Flynn and Julie made him watch New Moon. There's a scene after Bella and Edward breakup where the camera spins around Bella sitting in the same chair as months pass, and Luke couldn't stop laughing at it. His laughter had earned him many punches through the arm (which he obviously hadn't felt, but the point had been made.) But now he kind of gets it.

Time is spinning on around him. He knows, because he owns a calendar and Alex is the kind of person who crosses days off the calendar whenever he comes over to visit. (He lives with Willie now. (Luke thinks he lives with Willie now. He's not really sure.)) But everything feels disconnected from time and from reality and from him.

He doesn't know how they get through the first few months, because they've all suffered the same loss. They take turns taking care of one another, he guesses. When Reggie blasts Flatt & Scruggs for twenty-four hours without pause and loudly sings the harmonies by himself, Alex and Luke come and hold him until he finally breaks down in tears. When Alex and Flynn try to watch Queer Eye without Julie for the first time and have to pause every thirty seconds, Willie is there holding their hands. And when Luke can't get out of bed for four days straight, it's Ray of all people who sits with him and tells him that he knows. Luke gets the sense that Ray isn't talking about the loss of Julie, but about the loss of the love of his life.

A new Slayer is called in Glasgow, he hears. The Council doesn't ask him to be her Watcher. Maybe he could move to Scotland anyways. Provide support where it's needed. (He hears there's a Hellmouth under the Tennent's Brewery.) But there's an unguarded Hellmouth in Sunnydale and he isn't ready to leave the memories of her behind.

Vampires keep coming, and the group keeps fighting, and then months have passed and there's another apocalypse, because the apocalypse still comes even when there's no Slayer.

But even with him, Reggie, Alex, Flynn, and Willie fighting, it looks like this may actually be an apocalyptic apocalypse. An army of vampires invades the town, and the Scooby gang are unable to stop it. This is how the world ends—not with a grand plan or with the opening of the Hellmouth, but just a lot of biting immortals.

Luke has been fighting for two hours straight, which might explain why he doesn't notice that Alex, Reggie, and Flynn have slipped away until they run up to him. If he were less exhausted, maybe he would notice the smiles refusing to leave their faces, but he is feeling pretty desperate.

Reggie speaks first. "Hey, Luke, you know what we could really use right now?"

"A miracle?"

"But specifically, what kind of miracle?"

Luke rubs a hand down his worn face. "I dunno, Reg, what kind of miracle?"

"A Slayer."

He drops his hand, and turns to glare at the vampire. "Dude, why the fuck would you—"

Then he sees the figure in the alleyway behind them. Dressed in the black dress they buried her in, covered in dirt, with cuts all over her hands like she just dug herself out of her own grave.

"Julie." Luke honestly has no idea how he stays standing. His whole body feels light, numb, tingling—like it's about to give out.

She does something with her mouth, as if she's trying to smile but hasn't quite remembered how those muscles work. "Hey, Luke." Her voice is hoarse, but it's her voice, it's her…

"H-How—"

Alex explains. "There's a resurrection spell that can bring people back when they die of purely mystical causes. Willie researched it, I cast it. It was… really fucked up, actually."

Reggie shudders. "Yeah, Alex had to eat snakes. Didn't warn us that was going to happen."

"I didn't eat snakes, I swallowed them," Alex clarifies, as if this distinction is somehow meaningful. But his head snaps back around to Julie. "And it was totally worth it and I'd do it again. We're so glad you're back."

Flynn cuts through their banter and meets Luke's gaze. "It's really her," she assures him gently. "But, reunion's gonna have to wait. Julie, how do you feel about slaying, like, 80 vampires?"

Julie takes the stake that Flynn hands her. "You guys really suck at welcome back parties."

Luke doesn't think he's ever been so effective at fighting before in his life.

December 2018

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Alex and Luke sit in the Bronze, the din of other people in the club making the surreal day feel more real. Reggie and Julie have gone home to visit her parents. Luke doesn't expect to see her for several days. He's so glad that Ray of all people gets to spend Julie's first days back with her, but… it's really hard having her out of his sight. Alex slides a glass of alcohol across the table for Luke to look at. "We didn't know if it would work."

"So what, you didn't want to get my hopes up?"

"Kinda, but that wasn't the main thing."

"Then what?

Alex softens, sympathetic. "You know what." Luke glances at him through red-rimmed eyes, utterly wrecked. "If she'd come back wrong… we can't have a demon or an evil version of Julie going around with Slayer powers. Luke, if any part of what came back wasn't Julie, you know we would have had to destroy her. And if any part of what came back was Julie, can you honestly say you would have been able to?"

Luke tries to imagine the scenario, but his mind rejects even the hypothetical. But he's her Watcher. He needs to be objective. "I could have handled it."

"I was never going to put you through that."

"Would you have told me? If it hadn't worked."

Alex's hesitation answers for him. "Luke, can you please stop being depressing and just be happy that she's alive again?"

"She still died. It's not as easy as flipping a switch."

"I know."

"No, you don't! Because I didn't!" Everything that Luke has carried through months of grieving, and years of pre-grieving before that, comes bursting out. "I spent three years thinking I knew what it would feel like when she died. Protecting myself and preparing myself for the worst possible death, for feeling utterly destroyed and ripped apart and meaningless, and you know what her dying turned out to be? A million times worse. I know what it'll be like when she dies. I know every single fucking second of that, and I'm gonna spend the rest of her life knowing that."

Alex twitches a hand out to hug him, then draws it back. "We're all feeling that. You're not alone in this."

"But I should have figured out her plan. I'm the Watcher, and she's the one who figured out how to shut the battery down. I should have been the one who-"

"And then I'd be sitting here having the same conversation with Julie. Luke, what's done is done. She's back. Either you can spend the rest of her life hiding from her, or you can spend time with the woman you love."

Luke covers his eyes, remembering her last words to him. Easier said than done.

The first couple weeks of Julie being back are awkward in a way he would never have guessed. They haven't always gotten along but they've never been awkward before. He's not sure whether he's done something wrong or whether it's something she's doing with everyone. When the others ask where she was, the description she gives is a version of the one he gave of his between-time. There's something about the explanation that rings false for him, but he's too scared to ask. Too scared that he might make the gap between them worse.

The longest conversation they have is one day when she sees his face in full light. "You look older."

"I've been visually aging this whole time. Just another part of my 'abnormal presentation of the afterlife' that the Council doesn't understand."

"I never noticed."

"Guess cause you used to see this work of art every day." He chuckles awkwardly as he waves at his face.

She just hums and turns away.

He's so focused on trying to figure out how to resurrect the bare minimum of their friendship that he's really not prepared for the moment when everything changes.

They're at the cemetery and Julie is fighting a vampire and it's so ordinary, and then the vampire kicks her and Julie rams into Luke and they both fall backwards.

All the air goes out of him, partly from the impact but mostly from the shock. Julie shoves herself to sitting and stares at him. "What?"

Luke can only stare back until he sees the vampire rushing at them. "Julie."

She grabs the stake and flings it full power into the vampire's chest, dissolving her to dust. Julie leaps to her feet and backs away from Luke.

"What just happened?"

He gets up, but she skitters back like a frightened cat. Holding up his hands in a "I mean you no harm" gesture, he moves toward her slowly. "Just checking." She nods, trembling.

He puts his hand on her arm.

Their shocked gazes lock.

On the one hand, it just feels like an arm. It isn't like a choir of angels begins singing or like her arm really feels fundamentally different from any other human arm. But on the other hand, it is Julie's arm.

Yanking herself free, she stumbles away from him.

Not to be presumptuous, but Luke would have assumed that if they could magically touch, it would be a good thing. Not an instant relationship thing by any means, but a good thing nonetheless. But she's recoiling as if this is her worst nightmare.

"Alex…" she forces out. "He got the resurrection spell wrong. I came back wrong."

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

"Julie, we don't know that."

"You can only touch demons. I must be—" She can't bring herself to finish the sentence.

"We don't know what I can do. We've only ever been guessing. There's no precedent for me."

"But I'm different. Something about me is different. I'm… wrong."

"We'll get Alex to run some tests. Julie, this doesn't have to mean anything bad." He reaches for her hand, but she whips it away.

"Don't touch me!" There's a vicious edge to her voice that he's never heard directed at him before. "I want to talk to Alex."

As Alex finishes running his tests, Willie slips out into the apartment hallway to talk to Luke.

"Well?"

"I mean, there's not really a demon detection spell, but there's a few things that only work on demons and they're not working on her. She kinda just seems like Julie."

Luke hadn't really thought that she was a demon, but it's a relief nonetheless. "So it's me, not her."

Willie shrugs. "Your whole ghost thing has always been a little weird, so that wouldn't really be a surprise. And the whole 'can only touch demons' thing is a bit… it lacks poetry, you know? Most of this supernatural shit's got some poetry to it. Like, I dunno, maybe you can only touch beings whose 'souls have been forged by magic.'"

"And bringing her back with a spell forged her soul with magic?"

"I dunno, bro. You're a little weird, she's a little weird. I don't think anything's wrong with either of you. Bringing her back probably just made her fulfill some technicality that qualifies her for your touching list."

"Dude."

"Sorry, phrasing. I'll never say touching list again."

They exchange a glance and Luke huffs out a laugh.

"Is she still…"

"Super freaked? Yeah." Willie goes silent for a moment, then nods for them to move to the living room, further away from the hearing radius of the door. Willie perches on the back of the couch. "I'mma be honest, I don't really think it's about you." It's sort of a relief to hear, because Luke hopes so but he doesn't want to assume. "The vibe I get is that she wants there to be a supernatural explanation because she's not feeling how she thinks she should be feeling about being back. Which… I dunno about you, but that whole 'it was like being asleep' thing feels a bit," he nods to Luke, "plagiarized."

Again, Luke's glad to hear Willie say it—the ex-demon is older than all of them combined, and he knows more about magic than any of them ever will. Luke's inclined to trust his judgment over any of theirs.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. What do you think? She was actually in a hell dimension?"

"I've had friends get trapped in hell dimensions before, been in a few myself, and … obviously, they're all different, and people react differently to trauma, but she doesn't seem traumatized. It's more like…"

"… being here is the trauma." It pains Luke, because the contrast between the bubbly, joyful, vibrant Julie the night before her death and the withdrawn, quiet, empty Julie now is so present every time he interacts with her. The idea that all the things that used to bring her so much happiness now cause her pain makes him ache. "So, what… a heaven dimension?"

"Something like that." Willie sighs heavily. "The Slayer finally at peace and then yanked back to this hellscape. Bro, I wouldn't have suggested that resurrection spell if… She died in a magical battery that was connected to all hell dimensions. I assumed that's where she went. It seemed like a rescue mission."

Luke feels ashamed, because Willie had given a thought to where she'd gone. All Luke had known was that Julie wasn't there with him, and that would have been enough for him to try a resurrection spell if he'd known they existed.

The door to Alex's old room opens, and Flynn and Alex step out. Flynn makes eye contact with Luke, gives him a sad smile, and nods her head to send him in.

He steps inside cautiously. Julie is huddled on the bed, wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by small bowls of mystical herbs and he doesn't think he's ever seen her look so small. She glances up at him and twitches a smile. Leaving plenty of space between them, he sits at the other end of the bed.

She fists her fingers in the blanket. "I'm sorry. I kinda freaked out at you."

"You're good."

She opens her mouth, but seems to be unable to find any words.

"Jules, if you…" How to phrase this? "You don't have to feel any kinda way about… being brought back, okay?" She meets his gaze, surprised. "Like, whatever you're feeling, it's valid and you can talk to me about it. If you're… not happy or you're mad or whatever, it's not gonna hurt my feelings, I'm not gonna take it personally. And if you don't wanna talk and you just wanna sit in silence or watch something, then I'm here too. Or if you want me to leave… Whatever you need. You don't have to take care of us. Let us take care of you, okay?"

She takes it all in, blinking back tears. The silence in the room rings for a solid minute before she manages to get words out.

"How did you get better? The first year or so that we knew each other… you didn't talk about it a lot, but you were in a lot of pain." She looks at him, and he can only nod. Of course she knew. "But by the time I… left, you seemed to be in less pain. How'd you do it?"

"Um, a few different things. Therapy. The Watchers' Council is maybe borderline evil, but they do employ some pretty rad therapists."

"Could you get me a number?"

"Of course."

"What else?"

He chuckles awkwardly. "Um… Saga."

"Saga… like the comic series?"

"Yeah. I was in a comic shop and I, um, definitely paid for the first trade…" She glares at him. "It was early ghost days! I didn't have the ability to hold money yet. Anyways, read it, loved it because—"

"It's Saga."

"And I wanted to know what was gonna happen next and so every month I had something to look forward to. And by the time Saga went on hiatus, I had The Good Place and then I had The Dragon Prince, and I just kept filling my life with things to look forward to. Including people. Especially people."

He smiles at her, and she smiles back tentatively. Then, like that amount of eye contact and happiness is overwhelming, she looks away. "Is Saga back from hiatus yet?"

"Nope."

"Damn, how long does a girl need to be dead to get some more Saga?" It's meant to be a joke, but she delivers it with too much heaviness. But she shoots him a dark smile anyways. "You and Reggie aren't the only ones who get to play the dead card now."

There's another silence, then she asks tentatively, "What were… we were in the middle of watching something when I left?"

"Avatar: The Last Airbender."

She gets her laptop from her bag. "Can we watch Avatar?"

He pulls the show up on Netflix (he uses laptops now!) and they start to watch their next episode.

Seven minutes in, she shifts a little closer to him.

Twelve minutes in, she shifts closer still.

Fifteen minutes in, she rests her head on his shoulder.

They watch three episodes before she closes the laptop and they sit in silence for a long moment. Without looking at him, she whispers, "I wasn't really in a timeless grey void."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not yet, but someday."

And a week later, they do.

Episodes of Buffy referenced in this chapter:
• "Bargaining"
• "After Life"
• "Smashed"
• "Dead Things"