Archive of Our Own

December 1^st, 2020

Julie’s world ended the day her mom died.

It had been coming for years, ever since she got the diagnosis that it was too late for them to really do anything, but it still hit her like a bag of bricks when she got home one day in July to find her dad sitting on the couch with his head in his hands.

She’d made it a lot longer than the doctors had expected.  She’d been there to see Julie graduate.  She’d been there for her eighteenth birthday, to wake her up the next morning when she was still in her own bed, all alone.

But there were so many things she wouldn’t be there for.

That’s what was really hitting Julie today.  She’d deferred college for a year, opting to stay with her dad and Carlos and her aunt, unable to even think about sitting in classes and playing music.

But today was different.

Today it was the first of December.

She’d always get home from school on this day to find her mom waiting with a wide grin, all the boxes of Christmas things out from the garage, ready to decorate.

It hadn’t even hit her what day it was until Carlos got home from school, his face falling like he’d just realized what wouldn’t be happening.

And Julie had apologized and held him and they’d had a cry for a little while.  They’d gone together to get the boxes from the garage, and they’d decorated the house, but it wasn’t the same.  The cheery Christmas music felt hollow.  The hot chocolate tasted bitter.  Every new box of memories brought more tears.

Their dad was out of town on business, so they’d piled pillows and blankets on the floor of the living room, not wanting to go to bed alone.

“If your guy finally shows up and tries to cuddle me, I’m gonna punch him,” Carlos muttered into his pillow, already half asleep.

Julie rolled her eyes.  “He hasn’t shown up yet,” she reminded him.  “The chances of him showing up tonight aren’t that high.”

Carlos didn’t respond, and Julie sighed.

Sure, she’d stopped caring as much after her mom died, but there was still a part of her that hoped every night she went to sleep that she’d wake up the next day somewhere else, or still in her own bed but in the arms of someone who would make everything all better, who would make everything make sense again.

It was why she still wore sensible pyjamas to bed every night, even though it’d been nine months since she’d turned eighteen.  It was why she still wore those stupid, uncomfortable First Meeting shoes even though her feet were too hot.  It was why she still slept with her phone strapped to her stomach.

Maybe it wouldn’t be tonight, but one night it would happen.  She’d wake up somewhere else, in someone else’s bed, or he’d wake up in hers.

Some days, meeting him, meeting her soulmate, was the only thing keeping her going.

December 2^nd, 2020

She woke up the next morning on the floor of her living room, and the only other person there was Carlos.

She kicked off her stupid First Meeting shoes and sighed, rolling over to shake her brother awake so he wouldn’t be late for school.

And then she just kept laying in the nest of blankets and pillows, only moving enough to unstrap her phone from her stomach and scroll through Instagram without really seeing any of the posts.

She was shaken from her trance a few minutes or hours—what was time?—later when a knock came at the front door.  She groaned as she stood up, running a hand through her hair until it got stuck in a knot.  She was rubbing at her eyes when she opened the door, and was met with a laugh.

“So glad you dressed up for our arrival,” Flynn said, and it took Julie another second before she realized who it was.

“You said you weren’t getting back until next week,” Julie said, throwing her arms around Flynn’s neck.

“Cause I wanted to surprise you,” Flynn said, laughing.  “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.”  Julie squeezed Flynn one last time before pulling back, grinning at her for a second before turning her gaze to the girl standing behind her best friend, and sighing.  “Hey, Carrie.”

“Julie,” Carrie said, nodding at her.  “Very fashionable pyjamas.”

Julie nodded again, and opened the door wider, letting her guests into her house and following them to the living room.

Her and Carrie’s relationship wasn’t as terrible as it had been even last year, but they still weren’t anywhere near as close as they’d been when they were kids.

Flynn had turned eighteen first in their class, her birthday in early January.  Julie and the rest of their class had been waiting with baited breath for Flynn’s tales of waking up with her soulmate, but Flynn had just woken up in her own bed.  Alone.

It wasn’t until April that Flynn had woken up in someone else’s bed, on the morning of Carrie’s eighteenth birthday.  And obviously Carrie had been livestreaming herself sleeping all night, and plenty of people had seen the exact moment that Flynn had appeared in her bed, so it wasn’t like they could keep their soulmateship a secret if they’d wanted to.

It’d taken a while, weeks of Flynn and Carrie completely avoiding and ignoring each other outside of waking up in each others’ beds, but then Carrie had gotten sick and missed school and then Flynn had gotten sick from waking up in Carrie’s bed and their parents had decided that letting them get through the sickness together would be better than driving one of them home every morning.

Julie still wasn’t sure what had gone down in their fever-dazed, cough medicine high days together, but Flynn and Carrie had come back to school as the new It couple.

Julie was taking a little longer to come around.

She hopped up on the kitchen counter as Flynn started searching the cupboards.  She had missed her friend.  As much as she might not have been keen on her soulmate, Flynn was still her best friend.  And it had been months since Flynn and Carrie had left to backpack around Europe.  They’d invited Julie to come, too, but she’d had her reasons for declining.  Even if she had felt like third-wheeling or like potentially having to buy an extra plane ticket once her soulmate finally turned eighteen, her mom had just died.  She hadn’t exactly felt like going anywhere.

But she did miss Flynn.  So freaking much.

Catching up with Flynn was great.  Julie left Flynn and Carrie in her kitchen and went upstairs to shower and change before joining them.  Flynn made pancakes, her specialty, and she and her girlfriend shared stories of their adventures.  Julie was quieter, just happy to be around her friend again.

But then they moved to the living room, and her eyes caught on the nest of blankets she’d slept in with Carlos last night, and everything she’d been feeling before caught up to her.

“What is it?” Flynn asked, coming closer when Julie froze in the doorway.  “What’s wrong?”

Julie shook her head, her eyes drifting from the blankets to the garlands on the walls, to the hundreds of snowman figurines on the shelves, all in the same places they’d always been.

“She won’t be here for Christmas,” she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes.  “She won’t be here for anything anymore and I just—I don’t—”

Flynn held her as she broke down, clutching her friend like her life depended on it.  She didn’t know or care what Carrie was doing.

When her tears subsided enough for her to speak again, she buried her face in Flynn’s neck, sighing deeply.

“I just wish I could bring her back,” she said, and then felt Flynn tense.

“Well,” her friend said, and Julie pulled back enough so she could see her.  “That’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

It took both Flynn and Carrie explaining it multiple times for Julie to finally understand what they were saying, and even then she didn’t really get it.

“So what you’re saying,” she said, digging her hand into her hair, “is that you met some dude—”

“Caleb Covington,” Carrie confirmed, nodding.

“—who gave you a time travelling necklace,” Julie confirmed, barely believing the words as they came out of her mouth.  “So you haven’t actually been backpacking through Europe and have been backpacking through time instead?  And you think I can use your time travel thing to get my mom back?”

“Exactly,” Flynn said, as Carrie said, “Well, we were still technically backpacking through Europe.  Just not 21^st century Europe.”

“Right,” Julie agreed, and shook her head, trying to clear it.  “Right.  Okay.  Just let me think.”

She left Flynn and Carrie in her kitchen to pace around her house.

They’d been time travelling.  For months.  Because they’d met some random dude who gave them a magic time machine on a necklace.

Because that was something that just like happened to people.

Because that made sense.

She huffed, turning and pacing back.

But why would Flynn make this up?  Carrie, she could see, before Carrie and Flynn became a thing, at least.  But Flynn?  There was no way that Flynn would lie about something like this, especially not if she was including the potential outcome of bringing her mom back.

Holy shit Flynn thought they could get her mom back.

She tore back into the kitchen, slamming her hands down on the counter and startling Flynn and Carrie away from each other.

“You think you can bring my mom back?”

Flynn blinked at her, then nodded.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but you could go back in time to before she got diagnosed and get her to get tested earlier and, I don’t know, it might work.”

Julie nodded.  “Okay,” she said.  “Okay.  So what?  You just like dial up that necklace and send me back and I, like, Back to the Future this thing?”

“Pretty much,” Flynn said, nodding.  “There’s a bit more to it than that, but yeah.  Basically.”

Julie ran a hand through her hair.  “Okay.  Okay, we’re doing this.  We’re doing this.  How does it work?”

It worked like this:

There was a time travelling necklace.  It was an old, gold locket, covered in gears.  The inside was where the time travelling happened, with more gears and numbers that were twisted to get you to the year you wanted.

There were a few caveats with the time travelling.  The year you could pick, but not the date.  You arrived on the same date you left.  The time machine also took a week to recharge, so, wherever you went, you were stuck there for a week.

That was about it.  Flynn and Carrie weren’t sure if what you did in the past could affect the future, but it didn’t matter.

Julie was going to get her mom back.

December 3^rd, 2020

Flynn and Carrie stayed the night.  They had to explain the plan to Carlos when he got home from school, and Flynn and Carrie were going to stay at the Molina house to watch him while Julie was gone.  Her dad wouldn’t be home until after Julie should be getting back, but she’d leave her phone with them to keep up the rouse that she was in 2020 and not 2015.

When she woke up the next morning, she was relieved for the first time since she’d turned eighteen to not find anyone else there with her.  As much as she wanted to find her soulmate, him showing up today would’ve thrown off their plans.

They decided on the mall a few blocks away from Julie’s house as the place of time travel.  Showing up randomly in the middle of their living room probably wouldn’t have been the best idea, especially since she couldn’t remember exactly what anyone had been doing on December 3^rd, 2015.  She packed a bag with money and clothes in case anything went wrong and staying at her own house wasn’t an option.

And then Flynn handed her the necklace.

“It’s easy,” she said, wrapping her arms around Julie.  “We’ll get Carlos to school once you’re gone, and you’ll be back before we know it.”

Julie hugged her friend back, and then stepped away, taking a deep breath as she wound the gears.

“See you in a week,” she said, smiling at her brother.  And then she snapped the locket shut, and everything was white.

Day 1 – December 3^rd, 2015

When her vision cleared again, she was standing outside the same mall, but everything was different.  There was no doubt that she’d time travelled, but she didn’t remember any of this looking like this five years ago.

The people for one.  Maybe she’d been really out of it with hair styles and clothing styles when she was thirteen, but she felt like she’d remember a comeback of frosted tips, at least.

She tugged the straps of her backpack tighter, and headed into the mall to try to figure out when she was.

Day 1 – December 3^rd, 2015 ????

Straight up asking someone was out.  Asking to use someone’s phone was also out, as no one seemed to have one.  That put her in the early 00s at the latest, which, while not idea, would still work out.  If the mall hadn’t changed too much, there should be a stationary store that sold calendars around here somewhere.  That would at least tell her what year it would be in a few weeks, and, by process of very basic math, she’d be able to figure out what year she was in now.

Simple.

Except the stationary store wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

She huffed out a sigh and leaned back against a wall, wondering what her next step should be.

“Lost?”

She glanced up at the guy who’d stopped beside her.  He was kind of cute, but Julie was more concerned with figuring out when she’d travelled to than with checking out cute guys.

“Yeah,” she said, figuring this guy was her best bet to getting back on track with her mission.  “I’m not from here, but I told my grandma I’d buy her a calendar.  Where would I go to do that?”

He grinned at her.  “I am the expert at finding calendars,” he said, and swept his arm out to the side.  “Let me show you the way.”

She fell into step with the guy.  “Thanks,” she said, and then, because he was cute and helpful, added, “I’m Julie.”

“Luke,” he said, flashing another grin at her.  “How long are you in LA for?”

“A week.”  Julie took a deep breath and then let it out.  “Heading back home in time for Christmas.”

“Cool,” Luke said, and then started telling her everything she should check out before she left.

It was nice, in a way.  Being able to zone out while still knowing she’d get to where she was going.  Most of what Luke was telling her was already things she knew, so she could tune him out without feeling too bad and still being able to make the appropriate noises when she needed to.

Nothing she’d learned so far had told her where—or, rather, when—she was.  At any rate, she was glad she’d brought supplies, as there was no way she’d be able to just waltz up to her house and have her parents recognize her and invite her to stay.  If her parents even had that house, there was no way she’d be able to convince them that she was their toddler or baby or unborn child.

“Tada,” Luke said, doing jazz hands, and Julie blinked back to the present, realizing they’d stopped in front of a display of calendars.

Julie’s stomach dropped as she stared at the date scrawled across them.  Luke didn’t seem to notice, though, and started debating himself on whether her fictional grandma would like the one with cats or the one with Friends characters or the one with basketball players.

“That’s next year?” Julie interrupted him, pointing at the calendars.

Luke turned his to Julie, frowning at her.  “Well, this year is 1995,” he said slowly.  “So if I still know how to count, then, yeah, 1996 is next year.”

Day 1 – December 3^rd, 2015 ???? 1995

“Right,” Julie said, shaking herself off.  She forced a smile onto her face.  “Of course it is.  I was just like, wow!  It’s already 1996?  That’s crazy!”

Luke laughed, grinning at her.  “You’re funny,” he told her, and Julie kept her grin going, even though she wanted to scream.

But screaming could wait until she was in a less public place.

“Thank you for helping me,” she told Luke, backing away.  “But I’ve got to go.”

“What about the calendar for your grandma?” Luke asked, and she had said she was doing that, hadn’t she? 

“Right,” she said, and grabbed the one with the cats.  Grandmas liked cats, right?  “Thanks.”

She headed for the check out, and wondered if she had enough cash to last her the week.  She was wasting ten dollars on this cat calendar she didn’t need, and she’d have to find a hotel to stay in while she was here.  And food.  She’d have to eat, too.

Luke followed her, hovered near her as she paid for the dumb cat calendar, hoping the cashier didn’t look too closely at the cash and potentially discover it wasn’t technically supposed to exist yet.

She made it out of the store successfully, and sighed.

“I really have to go, Luke,” she said, offering him a smile.  “It was great meeting you, but I’m supposed to be getting back to my grandma, and—”

“Have you found your soulmate?” Luke blurted, interrupting her, and Julie blinked at him for a second.  “Sorry.  That was way too blunt.  I just—you’re cute, and I haven’t found my soulmate yet and if you haven’t either, there’s this really cool Christmas festival that I’d like to take you to.”

Julie stared at him for another moment.  There was absolutely zero chance that she’d be finding her soulmate in the next week.  Luke was cute, and he was apparently into her.  She could, in theory, agree to a date with him in the future with zero consequences.

But she wasn’t here to date.  She was here to find her mom.

“I think I’m pretty booked with my grandma,” she said, smiling in a way she hoped was apologetic.  “I honestly don’t think I’d have time.  Sorry.”

Luke shrugged.  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, then pulled off his backpack, rummaging around inside for a second before handing her a flier.  “My band’s playing tomorrow night, though.  You should come check us out if you have a chance.”

Julie took the flier, folding it up and tucking it into her pocket.  “Thanks,” she said.  “I’ll try to make it.”

Julie flopped back on the cheap motel bed with a sigh, going over everything she’d learned so far.

It was 1995.  Somehow, she’d travelled twenty years further into the past than she’d expected.  Not ideal, but she could work with it.

Her mom was out there, somewhere, twenty years old.  She’d already met her dad and they had an apartment somewhere.  All she had to do was find the apartment and somehow convince them that she was their daughter from the future and that she was here to give them important information to keep her mom from dying.

Yeah.  Way harder than it sounded.

She’d spent the day gathering intel.  She’d stolen a telephone book from a phone booth, but hadn’t gotten a chance to look through it yet.  She’d stocked up on cheap snacks, booked this hotel room, and had a pizza on its way.

She could do this.  She could survive a week in the 90s.  She could find her mom.  She could find some way to convince her to get tested earlier.  She could make it home.

Her hand found her time machine necklace, closing around it as she closed her eyes.  She could do this, but she felt so alone.

Maybe she would take Luke up on his offer to see his show tomorrow night.  It would be better than sitting in her motel room alone, even if Luke’s band was terrible.

The pizza came, and she paid the delivery guy.  She ate on her bed, watching random reruns of random shows that weren’t reruns yet, and then changed her pyjamas.  She stared at the First Meeting shoes that she’d packed on habit, and then shoved them back in her bag.  She wouldn’t need those here.

Even as exhausted as she was by all the twists of today, it took her forever to fall asleep.  The motel bed was uncomfortable.  The sounds outside were different and disorienting.

Everything was off, but she did, eventually, drift off to sleep.

Day 2 – December 4^th, 1995

When Julie woke up, there was something warm at her back and a weight draped across her stomach.  The motel bed was much more comfortable than she remembered it being the night before, and she burrowed backwards into the warmth.

“Oh!” someone that was definitely not her said, and she shot up, panicked.

“What are you doing in my motel room?” she asked the guy in her bed, his face obscured by his hands.

“What motel room?” he grumbled, and Julie looked away, glancing around the room.

She was definitely not in her motel room anymore.

“What?” she asked, voice hushed.  “Where am I?”

“My room,” the guy in her bed—or, rather, the guy who’s bed she was in—told her, sitting up next to her.  “I think we’re soulmates.”

Julie had been waiting for this moment since March.  Nine months of waiting to wake up with her soulmate.

Why in the hell did she have to travel twenty years in the past for it to finally happen?  How did that make any sense?

She turned to look at her apparent soulmate, and watched his face light up in recognition.

“Luke,” she said, still processing the fact that her soulmate was apparently decades older than her, and yet they still hadn’t met in her time.  “Hi.”

“Hey, Julie,” he said, grinning at her.  “Happy birthday.”

She blinked at him, shocked at the sudden change in topic.  “What?” she asked.  “It’s not my birthday.”

Luke’s grin dropped a bit.  “Sure it is,” he said.  “I’m twenty, so it’s not my birthday that made this happen.”

“Right,” Julie said, swallowing.  “Right.  Yeah, it’s my birthday, I guess.  Sorry.  I’m just in shock or something.  This is…this is crazy.”

It was a lot more than crazy, but that seemed to be enough for Luke, whose grin was back to its full force.

“Yeah,” he agreed, running a hand through his hair.  He shook himself a moment later, climbing out of bed and standing up.  He pointed at a landline on the side table.  “I’ve got a phone in here if you want to call your grandma or your parents or whoever to tell them you’re safe.  I can drive you home after breakfast, if you want.  I’ll give you a minute and head out and let my roommates know you’re here.”

“Sure,” Julie agreed, and then Luke was gone and she was left alone in Luke’s bedroom.

There was no reasonable reason that this should be happening.  Luke was twenty.  While it wasn’t unheard of at all for one soulmate to be a few years older than the other—less than two years was basically nothing in the grand scheme of things—he wasn’t just a few years older than her.  In her time, Luke was forty five, which was gross and something she didn’t even want to try to think about.

But there was still the fact that she’d never woken up in his bed in her time, and he’d never woken up in hers.

That made even less sense than this.

She made her way out of his room after a few minutes of adjusting, deciding that she could freak out about this whole thing on a full stomach.

There was quiet chatter coming from the kitchen when she came down the hallway, rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes, but it disappeared as soon as she came in sight of Luke and the guys she was assuming were his roommates.

“Hi,” she said, waving awkwardly.  “I’m Julie.”

“Hey, Julie,” one of the guys said, and then Luke was turning around from the counter.

“Happy birthday!” he said, brandishing a plate stacked with pancakes and whipped cream, a single candle burning on top.

It wasn’t even really her birthday, but Julie found herself grinning as the four guys sang to her.

“Make a wish,” the blond one reminded her, and Julie closed her eyes as she blew out her candles, wishing that this whole trip to the past would be worth it.

“Sorry it’s not a real cake,” Luke said, depositing it on the table and pulling out a chair.  She sat down in it, and Luke dropped into another one.  “Usually we have an actual cake.”

“But not, like, first thing in the morning,” the blond guy pointed out, sinking into a third chair with his own plate of pancakes.  “I’m Alex, by the way, since Luke has decided to be a terrible host.”

Luke kicked Alex’s chair under the table.  “I was getting to that,” he said, then turned his grin back on Julie.  “This is Alex.  He’s in my band.  That is Willie.”  He pointed to the long haired guy, who waved at her with his mouth full of pancakes.  “He’s Alex’s soulmate.  And that is Bobby.”  He pointed at the last guy, who offered her a smile.  “He’s also in my band.  You can meet Reggie later.  He’s also in the band and lives here sometimes, but he’s living on campus with his soulmate right now.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Julie told them all, meaning it.  There was something slightly familiar about Luke’s roommates, almost like she’d met them before.  But that didn’t make any sense, because she hadn’t seen them when she’d met Luke at the mall yesterday, and there was no way she’d met them anywhere else.

She was just tired and in a new situation and had, apparently, somehow, met her soulmate, so her brain was making things up.

She decided over breakfast that it really sucked that these guys lived in the 90s, because she was starting to really like Luke and his friends, as she listened to them chat and bicker and try to decide on the most embarrassing things about Luke that they could

Reggie appeared at the apartment as they were finishing breakfast, slamming open the door and yelling something about Luke not remembering to pick him up.

“—walk all the way over from—hey!” He cut himself as he noticed Julie, flashing her a grin.  “You’re new.”

“This is Julie,” Alex supplied before Julie could even attempt to introduce herself.  “She’s Luke’s soulmate.”

Reggie’s grin grew as he turned it on Luke, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Happy Birthday, then, Julie,” he said, crossing the room and hopping up on the table.  “I’m Reggie, the coolest one here.  Are you hanging out with us for the day, then?”

“No,” Julie said, pushing her chair back and away from the table.  “I need to head out, actually.  Thanks for the breakfast.”

“But you’re coming for our show tonight, right?” Reggie asked, then turned to look at Luke.  “You told her about our show, right?”

“Yeah, he did,” Julie said.  “I’ve already got a flier.  I think I should be able to make it.”

The guys whooped and Luke offered her the spare toothbrush in the bathroom and a too-big pair of shoes—of course the one time she didn’t wear her First Meeting shoes was the one time she needed them.  Luke brushed his own teeth and threw on some clothes, and then they were in his car and Julie was directing him to the motel.

It didn’t occur to her until they pulled up that he thought she was directing him to her grandma’s house.

“Your grandma lives in a motel?” Luke said slowly as Julie just sat there, staring up at the building in front of them.

“No,” she finally decided on, because she couldn’t think of a good reason as to why her fictional grandma would be living in a motel.  “I kind of made up the grandma.”

She wasn’t looking at Luke, but she could tell he was almost definitely staring at her in disbelief.

“You made up a grandma?” he repeated.  “Why would you make up a grandma?”

“Well, if I’d been expecting to wake up in your bed this morning, maybe I’d have come up with something better,” Julie sighed, shrugging.  She turned to look at Luke, who looked about as confused as he should be.  “Look, I just want to get dressed, and I really do have things I have to do today, so if you want to come up, I can explain.  But I’m not explaining this to you in my Rudolph pyjamas.”

Luke stared at her for a second longer before nodding, a grin sliding back onto his face.  “They’re very fly Rudolph pyjamas,” he told her, and she rolled her eyes.

Julie had stalled as long as she could and she still had no idea what she was going to tell Luke.

Any lie would just be digging herself further into a hole she wouldn’t be able to dig herself out of.  The truth is insane, and she was already looking at waking up in his bed for the rest of the week having already lied about her grandma.  She didn’t need him to also think she’d completely lost her mind.

But she had literally no plan when she stepped out of the bathroom to find Luke lying on her motel bed, absently flicking at one of the keychains on her backpack.

“I don’t have a grandma,” she said, dropping down onto the bed as he glanced up at her.  “I mean, obviously I have a grandma.  She’s just not…here.”

That was technically another lie—both her grandmas were alive and somewhere in LA at this exact moment—but considering neither of them were technically her grandma yet, she didn’t really count it as a lie.

“Yeah,” Luke said, smiling at her.  “You already said that.”

“Right.”

Julie stared at him a moment longer and then groaned, flopping on her back on the bed.

“Look, I’m not judging you,” Luke said, patting her shoulder gently.  “You didn’t know me yesterday.  So you lied about a grandma.  So what?  Why are you staying in this motel?”

Julie groaned again.  “You wouldn’t believe me,” she said.  “I’ve been trying to come up with a reason you would believe since we got here.”

Luke chuckled.  “Try me,” he said, and Julie sighed.

Maybe it was some soulmate magic that made her so eager to trust him.  Maybe it was how he hadn’t judged her for anything so far, so maybe he wouldn’t judge her for this, either.  Maybe it was just that she was twenty five years in the past and was alone and tired and just wanted someone to talk to.

Whatever the reason, the next words out of her mouth were:

“I time travelled here.”

Luke sat up taller on the bed, entering her vision, and stared at her.  “What?”

Julie offered him a wry grin.  “I time travelled here,” she said.  “It’s not my birthday today.  I turned eighteen on March 22^nd.  Or, rather, I will.  In 2020.”

“Twenty-twenty,” Luke repeated slowly, turning the words over in his mouth.

“Yeah.”  Julie sighed and lifted the necklace off her chest.  “This is a time machine.  My friend got it from some guy or something.  I don’t know.  I wasn’t really listening to where she got it.  But anyway, I have something I need to fix, and I couldn’t do it in 2020.  I only meant to go back to 2015, but something went wrong and I ended up here.  So I’ve got until the 10^th for this to recharge, and I’ve got to figure out how to do what I need to before then.  And then I’m heading back to my time.”

“Okay,” Luke said, nodding.  “Okay.  So you’re doing, like, Back to the Future to get your parents back together or something?”

“Or something,” Julie agreed.  She rolled her head over to look at Luke.  “You can look in my backpack if you want.  There’s probably something in there to prove I’m actually from the future.”

Luke shook his head, laying back down on the bed.  “I believe you.”

“What?” Julie sat up, staring down at him.  “No, you don’t.”

Luke shrugged, folding his hands behind his head.  “Does it sound a little crazy?” he asked.  “Yeah.  But I have no idea why you’d tell me this if it wasn’t true.  So, yeah, I believe you.”

“Wow.”  Julie flopped back down.  “Okay.”

That was definitely not what she was expecting.  He’d given in so easily.  It didn’t really make sense.

Maybe it was the soulmate thing?

“You’re not gonna be staying in this motel, though,” Luke continued, like he met people from the future all the time.  “We’re gonna wake up together, anyway, so you can just stay with us for the week.”

“Yeah,” Julie agreed, nodding.  “Okay.  That’ll be nice.”

“And,” Luke added.  “You’re gonna have to tell me what you’re Back to the Future-ing.”

Julie sighed.  “Luke,” she said.  “It’s really personal and I don’t—”

“I want to help.”  Luke sat up, watching her, and Julie followed his lead, tucking her feet underneath her.  “Julie, let me help you.  Whatever it is, I know 1995 better than you do, and I can help.”

She swallowed, watching him, looking for any sign that he was lying.  All she could see was a genuine eagerness, and it made her feel warm and safe.

Which made no sense because she’d know him for less than twenty four hours, but she wasn’t going to judge her feelings here right now.

“My mom died,” she said, which wasn’t exactly what she meant to say, but it was the truth.  “She died, so I’m here to stop it from happening.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke said, and Julie shrugged.  She still didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that.  Luke took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together.  “So.  What’s the game plan?  We’re finding your mom?”

Julie nodded.  “I got a phone book yesterday,” she said, gesturing to where it lay on the side table.  “I haven’t looked yet, but I know she’s in LA somewhere with my dad.  Step one is obviously finding her.  Step two is figuring out how to convince her to do some very specific things in the future so she doesn’t die.”

“Well, let’s start with step one, then.”  Luke clapped his hands and then leaned across the bed, grabbing the phone book.  “What’s your mom’s name?”

“Rose,” she said, scooting up the bed so she could lean back against the headboard next to Luke.  “Rose Santos.  Might be under my dad, though.  Ray Molina.”  She was still staring down at the phone book in Luke’s hands, but he didn’t move to open it.  She glanced up to his face, and found he was staring at her.  “What?”

“Your parents,” he said, sounding the words out slowly, “are Rose Santos and Ray Molina?”

Julie frowned.  “Yeah,” she said, then grabbed the phone book from him.  “And we aren’t gonna find them if we don’t open this.”

Luke grabbed it back.  “We don’t need that to find them,” he said.  “I know them.”

Julie sat up straighter, staring at him.  “You know my parents?” she repeated.

Luke nodded.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I went to high school with your mom.  They’ll be at the show tonight.”  He shook his head.  “Wow.  Rose and Ray are your parents.  That’s insane.”

“Yeah,” Julie agreed, shaking her head.  “That’s crazy.”

“But step one is done!” Luke held his hand up, and Julie slapped it with her own.  “And now you’ve got all day to figure out what you’re gonna say.”

Julie grinned at him, even though a pit was forming in her stomach.

She was so close.  She was going to see her mom tonight.  That was what she was here for, but suddenly it was real and now that it was happening, she wasn’t sure if it was actually real.

Luke clapped his hands and then stood up.  “Okay,” he said.  “I’ll give you a minute.  Pack up and think or whatever, and then we’ll check out.  There’s a payphone outside, and I’m just gonna call the guys and let them know you’ll be staying with us.”

“Great,” Julie agreed, smiling at him.  “Awesome.”

When they got back to Luke’s apartment, the guys had a real birthday cake ready for her.  It wasn’t really her birthday, but she was still touched.

The rest of the day was spent in a mix of preparing for Luke’s band’s show and preparing to see her parents.

Her parents, in their twenties.

It was gonna be weird.

“Have you heard our music before, Julie?” Reggie asked, mouth full of birthday cake.

Julie shook her head.  “I don’t even know what your band is called,” she admitted.

Alex gasped, hand to his chest.  “Luke hasn’t told you everything about us yet?”

“Luke gave her a flier,” Luke said, then turned to Julie, raising an eyebrow.  “I gave you a flier.”

Julie shrugged.  “I hadn’t looked at it yet,” she said, then shoved another bite of cake into her mouth.”

“Appalling,” Reggie said.  “Luke, you need to find a new soulmate.”

“We’re Sunset Curve,” Bobby said, because he was actually helpful.

“Thank you, Bobby,” Julie said, and then frowned.  “Wait.  Sunset Curve?  That sounds familiar.”

“Dude, I told you we’re getting famous!” Alex whooped, and then there was an exchange of high fives.

Julie wasn’t sure that was exactly true.  Her vague recognition of the name Sunset Curve was less of an oh, this is a famous band twenty five years from now, and more of something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

It was the same feeling that the guys themselves gave her.

“If Julie’s heard of us, that means we’re crazy famous,” Luke said, grinning at her, and Julie grinned back, hoping he wouldn’t ask any follow up questions about his band in the future.  At least not until she remembered where she recognized the name from.

She sat at a bar table as the guys set up for their show, chatting with Willie and Reggie’s soulmate, Kate.  She was nice and planned to become a pediatrician, hence why Reggie lived on campus with her.  Julie liked her, and she was just as vaguely familiar as the guys.  Katie decided they needed a girls’ day soon, and that they’d go for pedicures once her exams were finished.  Willie had qualified for a trick skateboarding competition, and made Julie promise him that he could teach her how to skateboard one day.

“What about you?” Willie asked, leaning on his elbows on the table.  “What do you do?”

“I make music,” Julie said, smiling.  “Singing and piano, mostly, but I play other instruments, too.”

She hadn’t done much of anything since her mom died.  It was just hard to put the effort into doing something that they’d both loved when her mom wasn’t here anymore.

But she was getting her mom back, and then she’d get her music back, too.

“That’s so cool,” Kate said, grinning at her.  “You should play something with the guys.”

Julie shook her head.  “No,” she said.  “No, I couldn’t.  I wouldn’t want to—”

“Hey, Luke!” Willie was already yelling, waving her off.  The sound up on stage cut off, and Luke looked over at them.  “Your soulmate’s a musician too!”

“Come do the mic check!” Luke yelled back.  “I want to sing with you, Julie!”

There was a part of Julie that wanted to say no, that was freaking out at just the thought of singing again.  But there was another, bigger part of her that was freaking out about seeing her parents tonight.

Singing with Luke, that would at the least be a distraction.

So she stood up, and Kate and Willie applauded her as she went.  Luke held out a hand, and she grabbed it, letting him tug her on stage.

“Which of our songs do you know?” Alex asked, sitting down at the drums.

“None of them,” Julie said confidently.  Maybe if she actually heard their songs, she’d remember where she knew the guys from, but that hadn’t happened yet.  “Can we do something else?”

Luke laughed and threw an arm over her shoulders.  “What songs do you know?” he asked, which was a nicer, subtler way of saying what songs that are still around in the future might we know?

Julie’s mind was suddenly blank of every song that had existed ever.

Except…

“ABBA?” she suggested, and Luke laughed.

“Mamma Mia it is!” Reggie declared, strumming his base.  “I like you, Julie.”

The music swelled around her, and Julie could feel the nerves building inside her.  She didn’t know if she would be able to actually sing.

But then Luke was smiling at her, and the guys were playing, and everything just felt right.

So she found herself belting out some ABBA with Luke, putting on the performance of her life for their audience of two.

When the song finished, she was panting and so close to Luke, who’d gotten rid of his own microphone at some point in exchange for sharing hers.  He was so close that all she could see was his face, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his eyes.  He had such nice eyes.  She watched them drop, and her heart picked up as she felt the heat of his gaze on her lips.

And then someone out in the bar cheered loudly, breaking the spell and making her jump away.

“Amazing!” that same someone yelled, and Julie turned towards the audience to see who else had entered the bar while she was singing, only to find her parents standing near the edge of the stage. 

“Are you finally replacing Luke?” her mom continued, grinning up at them.  “Because I support this decision completely.”

“Ha, ha,” Luke said, throwing his arm around her shoulder and squeezing.  Julie forced a smile onto her face and dug her nails into her hand to keep herself from flying off the stage and throwing herself at her mom.  “Julie, this is Rose and Ray.  Guys, this is Julie.  My soulmate.”

Rose—because if she referring to this woman who was just barely older than her as her mom, she was going to either combust or mess up and call her mom to her face—gasped.

“Finally!” she said, clapping her hands.  “And happy birthday, Julie!”

There was something in her mom wishing her a happy birthday when she’d thought she’d never hear that again that made her want to cry.

Instead, she stretched her grin further across her face.

“Thanks,” she said, then turned to Luke.  “I have to run to the bathroom.”

And then she literally ran to the bathroom before anyone could even acknowledge she’d said anything.

She stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection and gripping the edge of the sinks in a death grip.  She could do this.  She could talk to her mom.  She had to talk to her mom.  She had to.  That was the only way she could save her.

But the thought of actually doing it, of actually talking to her, it shook her to the core.  It made her feel like she was going to cry or puke or both, and she didn’t know what was coming over her.

The door opened, and she whipped her head over to see who had come in.

Kate smiled at her.  “Hey,” she said.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Julie said, taking a deep breath.  “Yeah, I’m good.  It’s just…a lot.”

Kate nodded, closing the door behind her and moving towards Julie.  “Yeah, I get it,” she assured her.  “Meeting your soulmate is big.  Luke’s a good guy, though.  You got lucky with him.”

While that wasn’t even close to what Julie was freaking out about, it was still nice to hear.  Luke being her soulmate was definitely a freak out she’d be having at some point, but it wasn’t really her top priority yet.

“Thanks,” she told Kate, meaning it.  “I’ll be fine.”

“Of course you will,” Kate said, grinning at her.  “Rose and I are getting brunch before my afternoon classes tomorrow.  You should come.”

Even thought the thought of sitting at brunch with her mom was equal parts making her want to curl in a ball and sob, and run away again, Julie made herself smile.

“Yeah,” Julie agreed.  “Yeah, that would be great.”

Kate grinned back and patted her on the shoulder.  “I’ll see you out there.”

Julie stood in the bathroom for another minute, psyching herself up to see her mom again.

She could do this.

She would do this.

When she left the bathroom, other people had started arriving at the bar, and Luke was waiting for her not far away, leaning against a wall.

“I’m good,” she told him before he could say anything.  “I promise I’m good.  I’m getting brunch with her and Kate tomorrow, and I’ll talk to her then.”

“Good,” Luke said, and offered her a smile as he pushed off from the wall.  “We’re going on soon.  I think the others have a table.”  He stopped walking and dug a hand into his hair.  “You should sing with us again sometime.  You’re really good.”

“Thanks,” Julie said, grinning at him.  “I’ll have to actually learn your songs first.”  He laughed, and she reached out, awkwardly punching him in the arm.  “Break a leg.”

The rest of the night wasn’t as awkward as it could have been.  She actually talked to her parents a bit, but mostly she hung out with Kate and Willie and cheered on the band.

Sunset Curve was good, Julie had to admit that.  She also definitely knew some of their songs well enough to sing along, but Rose’s presence was distracting enough that she couldn’t put her finger on how she knew them.

But she enjoyed herself.  This, hanging out in a bar with some friends and watching her soulmate’s show, potentially playing with them one night, it was something she could get used to.  In another life, where Luke was her age in her own time and so were his friends.  In another life, where this could actually work out.

After the show, no one really lingered at the bar.  Kate reminded Julie where they were meeting in the morning, and then she and Reggie headed back to her dorm.  Rose and Ray gave their own reasons for leaving that Julie didn’t really hear over the weirdness of talking to her parents as people her own age, and over the emotions that welled up every time she even looked at her mom.

The rest of them headed back to the apartment.  They ate leftovers from Julie’s not-birthday birthday cake, and then she was crawling into Luke’s bed next to him.

She lay on her back, inches away from him, staring up at the ceiling.  There was a part of her that wanted to wanted to close the distance and cuddle up to him, but there was another part of her that kept reminding her she’d known him for barely more than a day.

Luke was the one who fell asleep first, snoring gently beside her for a few minutes before he rolled over, his arm falling across her stomach as he snuggled into her side.  Julie tensed for a second before relaxing into his hold.

Yeah.  In another life, she could get used to this.

Day 3 – December 5^th, 1995

Julie’s heart had been pounding since the second she’d stepped into the restaurant.  She was honestly shocked she was able to string two words together to greet her mom.

She’d been greeted with a hug, though, and had almost started crying right then and there.

As it was, brunch was going well.  Kate and Rose were filling her in on every embarrassing story they knew about Luke, and everything else she should know.

And Julie was content to just listen.  She figured out where she knew Kate from after they regaled her with a story about how Rose dislocated her shoulder earlier this year and how Kate had put it back in place.  Dr. Kate Peters had been Julie’s pediatrician, and she’d already heard this story a thousand times when Aunt Kate and Uncle Reggie had come over for dinner or just to visit.

It was really weird to think about merging Aunt Kate and Uncle Reggie with this Kate and Reggie, so she didn’t even attempt to try and pushed the thought away until later.

“That was the first time I’ve ever relocated a joint,” Kate said proudly, lifting her glass of orange juice to cheers against Rose’s glass.  “Who even needs to get into med school?”

Julie laughed and took a bite of her waffle.  “I feel like there are more things than just relocating that you learn in med school,” she pointed out, and Kate shrugged.

“What about you, Julie?” Rose asked.  “Where are you from?  What’s your family like?”

Julie swallowed.  This was it.  This was her opening.

“I’m from up north,” she said, hedging around giving an actual answer.  “And my family’s great.  My dad is awesome, and I have a little brother, who’s the best.  And my mom—”

She cut herself off, swallowing hard.

“What about your mom?” Kate prompted, and Julie poked around her plate with her fork.

“She died,” she said quietly after a minute, glancing up at Rose.  Her mom’s brows were creased in the exact same way they always were when she was comforting Julie, and it almost made her cry.  “In July.  Breast cancer.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Kate said, reaching over to cover her hand with hers.  “That’s terrible.”

Rose was just staring at her, looking so upset for her, and Julie had to look away before she started crying.

“We could have saved her,” she whispered.  “If we’d caught it sooner, she could have fought it and won.  But she didn’t get checked until it was too late, and then we lost her.”

“Oh, Julie,” Rose said, and then her mom’s hand was on her arm, and Julie was choking back tears.

She shook her head, opening her eyes and staring at Rose again.

“Promise me,” she said, a little bit desperate, the tears starting to fall.  “Promise me you’ll get checked.  Regularly.  Don’t wait until you’re old enough for it to be recommended.  Don’t wait until it’s too late.  Don’t do it.”

“Okay,” Rose said, glancing over at Kate but nodding.  “Okay.”

Julie looked over at Kate, because the tiny part of her that hadn’t completely lost it pointed out that it would look weirder if she was only begging Rose to be on the lookout for cancer.

“Promise,” Kate told her, smiling gently.

“Promise you’ll make her, too?” Julie said, her eyes darting over to Rose and then back to Kate.  “You’re gonna be a doctor, so I know you’ll do it, but promise you’ll make her do it too.”

Kate nodded, turning her smile on Rose.  “We’ll make a day of it,” she said.  “Weekly brunches, monthly mani-pedis, and yearly mammograms.”  She turned back to Julie, squeezing her hand.  “You can come, too.”

Julie nodded, choking on her tears.  “Thank you,” she whispered, looking back at Rose.  “You have no idea what this means.”  She swallowed and pushed her chair back.  “I just need a minute.”

She entered the bathroom and went over to the sinks, clutching her shirt in her hand as broke down in sobs.

She’d done it.  She’d convinced her mom to get checked, or she’d at least convinced Kate to make her mom get checked.  That was really all she could do from so far in the past.

She’d done it.

She’d saved her mom.

She couldn’t let herself even consider the possibility that she hadn’t.  She’d see when she got back to the future and, if it hadn’t worked, she’d try again.

But, for now, she was going to take comfort in the fact that she’d done everything she could, and believe that it was enough.

She returned to the table a few minutes later.  Brunch didn’t last all that much longer.  Julie’s appetite was gone, and Kate had to get ready for her class that afternoon.

She hugged them goodbye.  If she lingered a bit too long while hugging Rose, her mom didn’t mention it.

Luke was pacing the apartment when she got back, the rest of the guys out, but he stopped and stared at her when she walked in.

“Did you do it?” he asked.  “Did it work?”

And that was all it took for Julie to break down again, but this time it was Luke that she clung to.  He was across the room and had taken her into his arms before she knew it, holding her close and letting her break.

They somehow ended up in his bed, him still holding her as her tears finally stopped.  She told him in whispers what had happened, what she’d made Rose and Kate promise.

And Luke just kept holding her, telling her he was sure it was enough, that he was sure it worked and that she saved her mom.

They didn’t leave his room much the rest of the day.  Luke had an old—or, rather, new.  He’d apparently just gotten it from his parents for his birthday—TV, and they spent the day plowing through his VHS collection, curled up around each other in his bed.

As the day wore on, Julie became more and more sure that she had saved her mom.  It was enough.  It had to be enough.

She was going to go back to the future and see her mom again.

But she also became more and more sure throughout the day that she was still fucked.

Because being wrapped up in bed with Luke felt like the most right thing in the world, and she didn’t know how she was going to be able to leave him behind.

Day 4 – December 6^th, 1995

Julie woke up slowly, feeling warm and well rested and just overall good.

Someone was whispering her name, a hand brushing against her cheek as it swept her hair off her face.  She blinked her eyes open, sleepily taking in Luke’s face, smiling softly at her.

“Hey,” she whispered, smiling back at him.

“Hey,” he said back, his fingers still brushing over her face.  “How are you?”

Even still half asleep, she could figure out what he meant.  She’d spent most of yesterday crying on him.  There was only one thing it could mean.

But she was feeling fine this morning.  She’d done everything she could to save her mom.  There was no way for her to know if it worked until she went back to her time, but she believed it had.

And there was something really nice and cozy and safe about waking up with Luke, something that made everything feel right and really, really good.

“I’m good,” she told him.  Their legs had gotten tangled together at some point during the night, and she shifted, brushing her toes against his calf.  “I’m really good, Luke.”

His smile grew, and he ran his thumb over her cheek again, and Julie never wanted to leave this moment.

“Good,” Luke whispered, staring at her for another second before rolling away, taking his warmth with him.  “We’re going out.”

Julie sat up in bed, pushing her hair back.  “We are?”

He nodded.  “Yup,” he said, grinning at her.  “I’m taking you out.”

Julie felt her own grin spread across her face.  “Okay.”

Taking her out was, apparently, a date.  Or, at least, it really felt that way to Julie.

There was a fair at a pier.  It was there all year, apparently, but right now it was vaguely Christmas themed, which made it special.

Luke bought them both Santa hats near the entrance of the fair, and Julie kept hers on all day even though her head was sweating so much.

It was really nice, playing fair games and riding rides with Luke.  She hadn’t been on a date with anyone since before everyone started turning eighteen.  People dated while waiting to meet their soulmate, sure, but Julie hadn’t gotten out of the feeling of weirdness at the thought of dating.  There was always the chance that one day they’d wake up in someone else’s bed, or that you would.

Some people tried to make it work.  Hell, Julie was sure that some people did make it work.

But Julie hadn’t gotten to the point where she would have been okay dating someone who could one day wake up and discover that whatever force that was behind the whole soulmates thing wanted them to be with someone else.  And then her mom died, and dating really wasn’t anywhere close to anything she wanted to do.

But Luke was different.  He was her soulmate, somehow, and she decided that the logistics of that didn’t matter right now.  She’d think about what him being twenty seven years older than her when it came to that.

But he was nice and he was sweet and he was funny and he pretty freaking hot, and he liked her.  He liked her, even though she’d told him that she was from the future and that his friends were her parents.  She’d told him a completely insane story, and not only did he still like her, he believed her.

And she liked Luke.  She’d thought he was cute even when he’d just been a random guy at the mall who helped her find a calendar for her fake grandma, and she liked him even more now that she’d gotten to know him.

So she ignored the fact that she’d be leaving him behind in a few days, and focused on their date.

They were both equally terrible at the fair games.  Like, couldn’t even win the lowest level prizes terrible.  Which made how hard Luke was trying to win her a stuffed reindeer even funnier.

“It’s okay,” Julie assured him, after he’d struck out at knocking down bottles for the fifth time.  “It’s really okay.  That reindeer probably doesn’t actually work for Santa, anyway.”

He ended up buying her a smaller reindeer from a vender, and made her promise to pretend he’d won it for her.

Meeting up with his parents for lunch wasn’t exactly something Julie had expected, but, like Luke said, he’d already met her parents, and he was so excited to introduce her to them that she couldn’t even find it in herself to be nervous.

They were honestly great.  Julie could see just upon meeting them how Luke had turned out so amazing.  Julie told them about her music, and vague stories about her life.  Luke’s mom showed her baby pictures she had brought in her purse.

They invited her over for Christmas, and Julie felt terrible about declining.  She said she had plans with her family, which was true, but it still felt like a lie.  And it was a lie when she promised to come over for dinner sometime soon, because there was no way it would be happening anytime before she left.  She couldn’t go into their house and make plans for a life she’d never get to have with Luke.

They were quieter after lunch, wandering through the fair.  Julie had her reindeer tucked under her arm and was walking close enough to Luke that their arms brushed with every step.  Julie wanted to grab his hand, but there was something holding her back, something keeping her from just going for it.

“Ferris wheel?” Luke asked, jolting her out of her thoughts.

Julie glanced up at the wheel, decked out in Christmas lights, and nodded.

Her nerves grew as the Ferris wheel rose higher into the air.

Ferris wheels were a definitely date thing, and the seat was small enough that they were pressed together.  She liked Luke.  She really liked Luke.  Being his soulmate was one thing, but meeting his parents, making plans for the future, that made this real.

And she liked thinking of it as real.

“Julie,” Luke said, as their seat was nearing the top.

She glanced over at him, and he was so close, right there.  Her eyes dropped to his lips, wondering what they’d taste like.  His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and he whispered her name again.

And then, suddenly, she was kissing him, leaning across the small space of their seat.  The Ferris wheel rocked beneath them, and Luke’s hand was in her hair, and she was gripping his arm, and holy shit everything about this was perfect.

The wheel lurched into motion again, and Julie jumped away with a gasp as she gripped the side of the seat.

She glanced over at Luke and giggled, a dumb smile stretching across her face that matched the one already on his face.

“Wow,” she said, licking her lips.  “Okay.”

“Julie,” Luke said, scooting even closer.  “Julie, I really like you.”

Something warm spread through Juie, and her dumb smile grew even bigger.

“I really like you, too,” she said, and then they were kissing again.

When they got back to Luke’s apartment, the guys and Kate were spread out over the couches, and wolf-whistled as Julie and Luke walked in hand-in-hand.

Today had been great, and they joined the others on the couches for their game of Monopoly.  Julie didn’t really care about the game, but being curled into Luke’s side was more than enough to keep her engaged.  She kissed him whenever one of them got a new property or when someone landed on one of their properties or if one of them landed on someone else’s property or if one of them went to jail or basically whenever anything else happened.  She just really liked kissing Luke, okay?

Bobby lost all his money and decided he was done with the game, turning on the radio instead.

“Oh!” Julie said, catching the beat.  “I used to love this song!  I haven’t heard it in years!”

Reggie frowned at her over the monopoly board.  “This song came out, like, a month ago.”

Julie froze.  “Right,” she said, laughing nervously.  “Of course it did.  I must be thinking of a different song.”

The others were still staring at her, though, and Julie was silently going over everything she’d ever said to them.  How many slip ups like this had she had?  How many would it take for them to wonder if—

“Julie’s from the future.”

Her head snapped over to look at Luke, staring at him with wide eyes.

“What?” Kate asked, because that was really the only correct response to someone telling you their new soulmate was actually from the future.

“Luke,” Julie sighed, and then turned to the others.  “He’s joking, obviously.  He doesn’t—”

“Julie,” Luke said, laying a hand on her arm.  “It’s okay.  They’re gonna find out in a few days anyway.”  He sighed.  “Julie’s from the future.  Rose and Ray are her parents, and she came to Back to the Future Rose into not dying.”

No one said anything for a long minute, just staring at them.

“You know,” Willie said, cocking his head.  “I can kind of see it.  You definitely look like you could be a combination of Rose and Ray.”

Reggie was nodding.  “Now that you mention it, she does.”

“Wait, you guys actually believe him?” Julie asked, shocked.  How had she managed to stumble upon the one group of people who would just readily believe she’d time travelled?  How was she lucky enough for this to keep happening?

“Yeah,” Alex said, shrugging.  “Not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Julie was going to ask him what the craziest thing he had ever heard was, but Kate gasped before she could.

“So that means,” she said, and Julie looked over at her.  “Everything you said at brunch yesterday.  That was all about Rose?”

Julie swallowed heavily and nodded, and Kate pressed her hand to her mouth.  A part of Julie’s mind told her that this was good, that they found out, because now that Kate knew what happened to Rose, it just increased the chances of this whole trip actually working.

“What about us?” Alex asked, and Julie turned her attention to him.  “Does Sunset Curve make it big?”

Julie shrugged.  “Not exactly,” she said.  “I know some of your songs, but you definitely aren’t still active in 2020.”

“Twenty-twenty,” Bobby whispered, and Reggie hushed him with a quiet, “Not now, Trevor.”

“What happened?” Alex wanted to know, but Julie wasn’t listening to his question

Julie caught the name, striking that memory that had been tugging at the corner of her mind since she’d met the guys.

“Wait,” she said, turning to Bobby.  “You’re Trevor?  Trevor Wilson, right?”

Bobby nodded slowly.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Why?”

“I used to be friends with your daughter,” Julie said, and then wondered if that was more information than she should be giving.

“My daughter?” Bobby repeated, raising his eyebrows.  “I have a daughter?”

And then suddenly everything about this whole situation was clicking, and Julie was finding it hard to breathe.

“Do you know the rest of us?” Kate asked, moving closer on the couch.  “Please tell me I actually get my doctorate.  Or tell me I don’t and I’ll drop out right now.”

“You do,” Julie said slowly, pushing aside the horrifying realization she’d had.  She pasted a smile on her face.  “Dr. Kate Peters was my pediatrician, actually.”

“Ha!” Reggie said, punching his soulmate in the arm.  “I knew I’d convince you to marry me!”

Kate rolled her eyes.  “I never said I wouldn’t marry you,” she pointed out.  “Just that I wanted to at least get into med school first.”

“What about the band?” Alex asked again.  “What about us?”

“Give her a second to breathe,” Luke said, eyeing her with a bit of concern.  Julie wasn’t sure how he’d learned to read her so well in only a couple of days.

“Okay,” Julie said, leaning back into Luke again.  “Okay.  So the band.”  She paused, swallowing heavily.  “You break up.”

There was a brief pause of silence, and then everyone was yelling at once, standing up and pointing and accusing each other of breaking up the band.

“Stop!” Luke yelled after a minute of this, and then he was turning to look at Julie.  “Why do we break up?”

Julie glanced between their faces for a second, not knowing how to answer.

She knew why the broke up.  She knew exactly why they broke up.

But she didn’t know how she was supposed to tell them that.

“I don’t know,” was what she settled on.  “None of you ever said.”

“So you know all of us?” Reggie said, apparently down to change the subject.  “Not just Kate and Bobby?”

“Yeah,” Julie said, relaxing again.  “Mostly.  I don’t know the specifics of what happened after the band broke up, but Trevor Wilson is a big name singer.”  High fives were exchanged with Bobby.  “Reggie, I really don’t know a ton about what you’re up to, sorry.  My mom had Kate over a lot, but you just came over for dinner sometimes or bigger events.  You and Kate have kids though, and they’re pretty cool.  They’re more Carlos’s age, though.”

“Carlos?” Kate asked, and Julie nodded.

“My brother,” she said.  “He’s twelve.”

“What about us?” Willie asked.

“You come for events, too,” she said.  “You guys live…I think somewhere in Northern California.  I really don’t know too much of the specifics, but you visit sometimes and we visit you sometimes.  You have a pool at your house, and you’ve got a son a couple years younger than me.  Willie’s been in the X Games a few times.  We went and watched once.  It was really cool.”

“Did I win?” Willie asked, leaning forward.

“I think so?” Julie said, trying to think back.  “I don’t really remember.  It was a while ago.  I know you’ve won some of them though.”

“Nice!”  Willie said, and high fived Alex.

“What about Luke?” Bobby asked, and everyone was staring at her again.

The horrible thing she’d been trying to ignore came back, unignorable now.

“Yeah,” Reggie said slowly, cocking his head at Julie.  “What’s Luke like in the future?  How weird was it to come here and find out he was your soulmate?”

Julie swallowed again.  “I mean, it was weird because finding my soulmate in the 90s,” she hedged.  “But I’ve never met Luke before I came here, so there wasn’t anything weird about that.”

She’d already told Luke that she didn’t know him in the future, but it seemed like the relation between her knowing everyone else in this room in the future and not knowing him seemed to be sinking in for Luke, if the crease of his brows was any indication.

And for everyone else.

“Why don’t you know Luke?” Alex asked.  “Are we not friends with him in the future?  Is he the reason the band breaks up?”

Yes.  “I don’t know,” Julie lied, digging her fingernails into her palms.

“But you have to know something,” Reggie insisted.  “You know the rest of us.  You have to know something about him, too.”

“I don’t know anything,” Julie repeated.  “I don’t.”

“Drop it,” Luke said quietly.  Julie could feel his stare, but she couldn’t look at him.

They weren’t up much longer after that.  They asked some more general questions about the future, and Julie gave the answers she could, distracted by the way Luke’s gaze never left her.  She could barely bring herself to look at him, though, and the tension was definitely noticed by the others.  Kate announced soon that it was time for her to head back if she wanted to get some sleep before her classes in the morning, so Bobby drove her and Reggie back to her dorm.  Then Alex and Willie headed to their room, and Julie went back to Luke’s as he trailed behind her.

She tried to ignore the elephant, going about changing into her pyjamas and turn down the blankets for bed.  She tried really hard to just ignore it and hope it went away, that another memory telling her she was wrong would pop into her head.  She tried really hard to ignore it because she didn’t know how to tell him and didn’t know how to fix it, and maybe if she had some time to think she’d be able to figure something out.

Luke, however, seemed to have no plan to ignore the elephant for more than a couple minutes.

“Why do you know everyone else in the future but not me?”

Julie swallowed heavily and stopped over fluffing her pillow, staring down at it.  “Luke…”

“Julie, please.”  Luke was suddenly across the room, dropping onto his knees on the floor in front of her and grabbing her hands.  She forced herself to actually look at him, at the pleading in his eyes and the panicked desperation written all over his face.  “Please, Julie.  Tell me.  I need to know what happens that makes them all hate me or something.  Please.”  He squeezed her hands, and Julie swallowed.  “Why don’t you know me in the future?”

Julie dropped her gaze from him, staring down at their hands instead.

“Please,” Luke pleaded again.

Julie closed her eyes and whispered, “You died.”

Luke didn’t say anything, and Julie couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t look at him.

“What?” he croaked out after a minute, and Julie took a shaky breath.

“You died,” she repeated, squeezing his hands.  “That’s why I don’t know you in the future.”

Luke was frozen another minute before pulling away, and Julie opened her eyes to watch him pace the room, digging his hands in his hair.

“Luke,” she started, soft, trying to figure out what you say to someone who just found out that they’re going to die in the next twenty five years.

“When?” Luke demanded, stopping his pacing to stare at her.  The desperation in his gaze had gone up, the panic building as well.  “How?”

Julie shook her head.  “I think a car accident, but I don’t remember,” she told him, wishing she’d listened more or made someone tell her about it, wishing she had more information to give him.  “Luke, I’m so sorry.”

Luke swallowed.  “When?” he repeated, desperation seeping into his words.  “When do I die, Julie?”

Julie closed her eyes again, bracing herself.  “Soon,” she whispered, and then opened them again, forcing her to look at him.  He deserved to have her look at him while she told him this.  “Really soon, Luke.  My parents are getting married in August, and you won’t be at their wedding.”

She watched the information sink in as Luke’s face fell, and then he sunk down on the bed, staring at a spot on the floor.

“Luke, I’m sorry,” Julie whispered, moving closer and laying a hand on his arm.  “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t even realize why everyone looked familiar until Reggie called Bobby Trevor tonight.”

Luke didn’t say anything, and Julie tried to think of something she could say that would help.  She knew what it was like to be expecting someone to die, but she didn’t know what she could do for Luke.  She didn’t know how to anticipate a death as sudden as a car accident, and she didn’t know when or where or anything else that could help them to prevent it.

“Luke,” she whispered, trying to figure out what would come after.

“It’s fine,” Luke said, though Julie could tell from his tone that it was anything but fine.  “I’m fine.  Let’s go to bed.”

“Okay,” Julie agreed.

It was another few minutes before Luke moved to actually get into bed, though, Julie following suit.  Earlier in the day, she might have been anticipating good night kisses and pillow talk.  Now, she was expecting something more along the lines of last night, lying on their own sides of the bed until they fell asleep

But, when she tucked herself under the covers, Luke rolled towards her and wrapped his entire body around her, burying his face against her neck.

Julie wasn’t sure either of them got much sleep that night.

Day 5 – December 7^th, 1995

Julie woke up alone, which already felt weird.  She didn’t know how she was going to handle it when she got back to her own time and wouldn’t be sharing a bed with Luke anymore.

She got out of bed and threw one of his hoodies on over her pyjamas—she hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly when she’d packed for this trip and hadn’t packed any of her own—and then left the room.

Alex and Willie were sitting on the couch, watching something on TV while eating cereal.

“Morning,” she said, and they glanced over at her.

By the time she’d joined them with her own bowl of cereal, they’d turned off the TV.

“Have you guys seen Luke?” she asked, taking her seat, and they shared a look before looking back at her.

“He ran out pretty early,” Alex said slowly.  “He said something weird when he left.”

Julie swallowed her bite of cereal.  “What did he say?”

“He said that you said that you don’t know him in the future because he’s dead,” Willie said, and Julie’s breath caught in her throat.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding.  “I didn’t think that was something I should just tell everybody.”

Alex nodded, then dug a hand into his hair.  “When does he die?” he asked.  “How long does he have?”

“I don’t know the specifics,” Julie said, staring down into her cereal.  “I think there’s a car crash, though, and it’s pretty soon.  He doesn’t make it to my parents—er, Rose and Ray’s—wedding.”

Alex opened then closed his mouth for a minute.  “Eight months,” he whispered after a second.  “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Julie agreed.  She sighed and leaned back into the couch.  “I just can’t figure out anything I can even do.  I’m pretty sure now I’ve saved my mom, but I don’t know anything about how Luke dies.  I don’t know where, or when, or even really how.  I can’t do anything about it.

They sat in silence for a bit longer.

“You could take him back to the future with you,” Willie suggested, though it was almost half-hearted.

Julie shook her head.  “I can’t make him just leave his entire life.”

After their solemn breakfast talk, they spent the morning playing video games in their pyjamas and waiting to hear from Luke.

Bobby eventually came home through the front door, a little after lunch.  Julie felt kind of bad that they hadn’t noticed he was missing, but she’d just assumed he was still asleep.  Apparently, he’d been out meeting his soulmate.  Carrie’s mom.

Julie opted not to tell Bobby about their divorce, complete with the severing of their soulmate bond.  She’d still been friends with Carrie then, and it had been pretty messy.  She didn’t know any details, really, about what went wrong, and meddling could just make it worse.

So she just congratulated him on meeting her, and then scooted over on the couch to make room for him to join their game.

The phone rang an hour or so after that, and Julie patted at her pockets until Alex got up from the couch to answer the wall phone.

“What are you doing?” Bobby asked her, and Julie shrugged.

“Do cellphones exist yet?” she asked, and Willie and Bobby nodded.  “Yeah, well, they fit in your pocket in 2020 and basically everyone has one.  They’re also computers and for music and for, well, basically everything.”

They were debating whether Julie was making things up or if computers and cellphones and music players could all actually fit in one device that fits in your pocket when Alex returned, flopping back down on the couch.

“That was Luke,” he said, and Julie abandoned the diagram of a cellphone she was drawing to look at him.

“And?” she prompted.  She’d been ignoring her worry about Luke all day, because if she ignored it then she could actually function as a human being, but all that effort had disappeared as soon as she heard he’d been in contact.

“He’s taking you out on a date tonight,” Alex said, which didn’t really answer any questions.  He sighed and shrugged.  “Other than that and where and when to meet him, that’s all I’ve got.”

“Okay,” Julie said, nodding.  “Okay.  If he wants to have a date, that means he’s doing okay, right?”

“Right,” Alex agreed.  He shifted, leaning forward to pick up her drawing.  “What is this?”

Willie took the drawing from him and turned it the right way.  “It’s a cellphone from the future,” he said.  “It’s also a computer and a Walkman and other stuff that I can’t remember.”

“And it fits in your pocket,” Bobby added.

Alex stared at the drawing for a second before declaring it, “Bullshit.”

Julie was thankful she’d packed a dress in her distracted packing for her trip.  It wasn’t particularly in fashion in the 90s, but she still looked cute.

But cute or otherwise, she was really nervous.

She hadn’t talked to Luke since she’d told him he had less than eight months to live.  She hadn’t seen him since she’d fallen asleep last night.  She had no idea how he was doing or what he was thinking.

All she knew was that he apparently wanted to take her on a date to a fancy restaurant.

She walked inside and spotted him already at a table before she had to ask the hostess, and crossed the restaurant to join him.

“Hey,” he said, standing up and smiling at her, greeting her with a brief kiss and then pulling out her chair.

“Hey,” she said back, sitting down and smiling at him.  She waited until he was back in his seat before asking, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, the smile still on his face.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Julie cocked her head.  “Because I haven’t seen you since last night,” she said, trying not to let the hurt creep into her voice.  “Because the last thing I told you was…that thing I told you.”

Luke’s smile faltered for a just a second before he was nodding, reaching out across the table to take her hands in his.

“I’m okay,” he told her, and she believed it.  “And I’m not gonna die.”

Julie sighed and squeezed his hands.  “Luke—”

“No,” he interrupted, still smiling at her.  “I’m not gonna die, Julie.  I’m going back to the future with you.”

Julie’s mouth dropped open and she stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying.  It had been exactly what Alex had suggested earlier, exactly what Julie had thought herself a million times in the last day, but it wasn’t anything she’d been expecting to hear from Luke.

“I like you, Julie,” he said, his smile going a little dopey and lopsided in a way that made her heart swoop.  “I really like you.  It’s not just the soulmate thing, because I liked you when you were just some random girl in the mall buying a calendar for her grandma.  I like you, and I want to be with you, and going with you to the future is the only way that can happen.”

The waitress came by then, asking what they wanted to drink, and Luke asked if she could come back in a few minutes.

“Luke,” Julie said softly, once the waitress was out of earshot.  “Your life is here.  Your parents are here and your friends and everything.  I can’t ask you to leave all of that behind just to be with me.”

Luke shook his head.  “You’re not asking me to do anything,” he said, squeezing her hands.  “I’m offering.  And I don’t even really have anything to leave behind here, Julie.  Yeah, there’s my parents and my friends.  But you said I don’t make it to Rose and Ray’s wedding.”  His smile turned sad, wry.  “I have less than eight months to live if I stay here, Julie.  Whether I leave with you or whether I stay, everyone here is losing me anyway.  At least if I go to the future, I’ll have you.  I’ll have a chance at actually having a future.”

Julie could feel tears welling up in her eyes, but she willed herself not to cry.  She’d already cried in a restaurant yesterday.  She didn’t want it to become a habit.

“Are you sure?” she whispered, and he nodded, flashing her that sad smile.

“I spent today with my parents,” he said.  “I told them everything.  I don’t know how much they believe, but they listened to me, and I think they understand.”

“Oh,” Julie said, quietly.

Luke leaned over the table towards her, the smile gone as he stared at her.

“Let me come with you,” he pleaded.  “Let me come be part of your life.”

Even if Julie hadn’t been dreading leaving Luke behind, even if she hadn’t wanted so, so badly to find a way for them to be together, for this to actually work out, it was so clear that Luke had already decided that this was the course of action they were going to take.

There was really nothing Julie could do but agree.

Day 8 – December 10^th, 1995

The next few days were spent getting things ready.

They told the guys and Kate what was going to happen, that Luke was going back to the future with Julie to save his life.  Ray and Rose were out of town for the day, but Julie was okay with that.  She really didn’t want to confront her parents about them being her parents, or somehow risk not being born in the first place.  The others agreed to fill them in when the moment felt right, sometime after Julie was born.

No one was particularly happy about Luke leaving, but they understood.  If he didn’t go, he’d be dead in less than a year.  If he left, he got to be with his soulmate and have a life.

“And, besides,” Luke had said, shrugging like it was nothing, “we’ll see you again in twenty five years.”

They had dinner with Luke’s parents, ending in tears and hugs.  They spent all the time they could with Luke’s friends.

And they planned.

Reggie decided that this meant he had twenty five years to learn how to hack into the government and make it look like Luke had been Alex and Willie’s kid the whole time. (“Why not your kid?  Do you not want me?”  “No, Luke, I don’t.  You’re a handful, and I will go grey early if you’re my kid.  My hair is way too great to go grey early.”)

Alex and Willie masterminded the theory behind the disappearance of Luke Patterson and Julie We-Never-Learned-Her-Last-Name.  It was a little graphic, but Julie was pretty convinced it would work.

Which led to today.

They’d packed the essentials that Julie didn’t want to risk losing back into her backpack.  Luke packed his own essentials into his own backpack, and brought his guitar, too.  Less essential, but he didn’t want it to sit around not being used for years.

Everything else was left in Luke’s room as evidence, and the guys would pack it away into boxes to be stored in Luke’s parents’ attic once it had been long enough.

They’d already said goodbye to Kate the night before.  She had a final, and they’d be gone before she finished.  They’d said goodbye to Bobby then, too.  He’d been sleeping over at his soulmate’s place, and didn’t know if he’d be able to make it back in time.

Julie had seen her parents a few times again in the last few days.  She hadn’t been as big a mess, thankfully, and had actually had some nice talks with them.  She couldn’t wait to see them back in her own time, though.  Seeing them as twenty year olds was something she would never get used to.

Which led to now.

There was something different about the necklace when Julie woke up this morning.  She couldn’t put her finger on what it was exactly, but she knew the exact second that it was recharged and ready to go.

She and Luke piled into his car, tucking their backpacks and his guitar into the trunk, and drove to the mall.

“You’re sure?” Julie asked him again as they pulled into the parking lot, because she’d keep asking him until they were back in her time, because she needed him to be sure before he just left everything behind.

“I’m sure,” he told her, grinning, and leaned over the space between them to briefly kiss her.  “Now, let’s find where he’s at.”

They spotted him hiding in the shadows, and then the security camera with it’s light flashing red.  Luke took a spot fully in view of the camera.  There weren’t many cars around, no obvious witnesses, but they had a contingency plan if no one actually saw.

“Ready?” Luke asked.  Julie nodded, and they climbed out of the car, starting to walk towards the mall.

Until a figure dressed in black—black hoodie, hood pulled over the head, black pants, black buff pulled up over his nose—jumped out from behind a nearby car, gun pointed at them.

“Get back in the car,” he growled, as Julie and Luke raised their hands and pleaded with him not to shoot.

They climbed back in the car, and the man in black climbed into the backseat, leaning forward just enough to press his gun to Luke’s shoulder as he demanded he drive.

Once they were out of the parking lot and away from the cameras, Alex relaxed back into the backseat and pulled off his mask and hood.

“I think that went well,” he said, tossing the fake gun onto the floor, and Julie laughed.

“Definitely the best fake kidnapping I’ve ever been a part of,” she agreed.

Luke drove them out a back road into the desert.  There were no cars around, no people, no signs of civilization.  He drove until they spotted Rose’s car, borrowed for the day by Reggie and Willie.

They were sitting on the hood waiting when they pulled up.

“How’d the kidnapping go?” Reggie asked as they climbed out.

“Amazing,” Alex said.  “I should probably quit the band and become a professional kidnapper.”

Willie laughed.  “That’s a terrible example to set for our son,” he countered, nodding towards Luke.

The rest of the plan was simple.  They took their things out of Luke’s car and then drove it off the side of the road, parking it half-hazardly and leaving the doors swung open and tossed the keys into the desert.

The guys would head to the beach, ditching Alex’s hoodie, buff, and gun somewhere along the way, and then head back to the apartment.  If they were lucky, someone had seen Alex kidnap them, and the police would already be involved.  If not, then the guys would report Julie and Luke missing the next morning, saying that they had headed out to the mall to finish Julie’s Christmas shopping and never came back.

Cutting all ties wasn’t exactly something they wanted to do, but they needed the broader public to have a reason to believe that they were gone.  It made things easier, and helped people like Luke’s parents explain why they were just suddenly gone.

“December 10^th, 2020,” Julie said, standing on the road and looking at the guys.  “That’s when we’ll be back.  Make sure someone’s out here, because I don’t have my phone and it’s a really long way back.”

“We won’t just leave you out here,” Reggie said, and then he was hugging her and Julie was trying not to cry.

They all exchanged hugs, Alex reminding her to take care of his son, and then it was time.

She pulled on her backpack and then twisted at the gears inside her necklace.  Luke put on his own backpack, grabbed his guitar.

When the gears were set and she had double and triple checked them, she grabbed Luke’s free hand in her own.

“It was really nice to meet you,” she told the guys, and then she was snapping the necklace shut with a blinding flash of white light.

December 10^th, 1995 ????

She opened her eyes and found herself standing in the desert, Luke’s hand in her own.  The only thing that looked different was the lack of Rose’s car and their friends.

“Did it work?” Luke asked, not dropping her hand as he looked around.  “Are we in 2020?”

Julie shrugged.  “No idea,” she said.  “I have no clue how we’re supposed to tell without a calendar.”

But none of Luke’s friends were there, neither in their twenties nor in their forties nor anything in between, so there was a part of Julie that wondered if they were even in the right year.

She sighed, tugged on Luke’s hand.  “Let’s start walking,” she suggested, and they started down the road.

They debated with each other what year they were actually in as they walked.  Julie’s stance was that, as long as her mom was still alive and they’d ended up somewhere near 2020, she didn’t really care that much about what specific year they were in.  Luke’s stance was about the same.

They’d been walking for half an hour or so when they finally saw the dust cloud that meant a car was coming, and their debate turned to whether hitchhiking out of the desert was more likely to get them home or murdered sooner.

But then the car pulled over a dozen feet in front of them, and the driver’s door was opening, and—

“Julie!” Flynn yelled, grinning widely as she waved.

December 10^th, 1995 ???? 2020

Julie dropped Luke’s hand to run to her friend, throwing her arms around her and holding her tight.

“How did you know we were here?” she asked, rounding the car to hug Carrie as she climbed out.  She did it partially because she was just so happy to be back that she wanted to hug everyone, and partially because Julie hugging Carrie was not something Carrie particularly enjoyed, and Julie still liked annoying Carrie.

“Your friends from the 90s told us,” Flynn said.  “They got the time wrong, though.”

Julie released Carrie and moved back, gesturing at Luke to come closer.

“Did it work?” she asked Flynn, her heart in her throat.  “Please tell me it worked.”

Flynn cocked her head, raising an eyebrow.  “I mean, I’m assuming that’s your soulmate,” she said, nodding at Luke.  “So I’d say it worked.”

Julie glanced at Luke and then back at Flynn.  “What?”

“You went back to the nineties to find your soulmate,” Flynn said slowly.  “Right?”

Julie shook her head.  “No,” she said.  “I didn’t know he was my soulmate until I met him.  I went back in time to stop my mom from dying.”

Understanding spread across Flynn’s face, and then she was grinning.  “Then it definitely worked,” she said, and Julie felt a sob rip its way out of her throat.

Flynn caught her and held her, and Julie cried.  She cried out all the grief she’d been feeling for months.  She cried out the tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding the entire time she’d been in the 90s.  She cried out the overwhelming relief she felt knowing that it had worked, that she had her mom back.

When she’d finally cried herself out, she pulled back, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“You good?” Flynn asked, smiling softly at her, and Julie nodded.  “Good.  Then introduce us to your man.”

Julie laughed and moved back, grabbing Luke’s arm in her own and dragging him closer to Flynn and Carrie.

“Guys, this is Luke,” she said, turning to rest her chin on his shoulder and smile up at him.  “My soulmate.”

He grinned back and then closed the little space between their faces to kiss her.  Julie could hear Flynn cheering and Carrie laughing, and everything just felt so right.

She pulled away and turned back to Flynn and Carrie, feeling her face heat up.

“Luke, this is Flynn,” she said, and Flynn waved at him.  “My best friend.  And this is her soulmate Carrie.  Bobby’s daughter.”

Luke jerked a bit in her grip, and Julie turned her gaze back on him.

“Bobby’s daughter?” he repeated, staring at Carrie.  “Bobby actually has a daughter your age?”

Julie laughed, a little incredulous.  “So you believed that I’d time travelled from the future and everything else I told you, but Bobby having an eighteen year old daughter is where you drew the line?”

Luke shrugged, and Julie laughed again.

Julie was practically vibrating the entire drive home.  She and Luke were piled into the backseat, and Julie couldn’t concentrate enough to pay attention to the conversation.  Luke held her hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles, trying to ground her, as he, Flynn, and Carrie discussed life in the twenty first century and everything he needed to know.

By the time they pulled into her driveway, Julie was pretty sure she’d combust entirely if she had to wait any longer.  She’d thrown open her door before the car had even come to a complete stop, and was sprinting up to the door and inside her house.

There were lots of people there, all of them stopping what they were doing to stare at her as she slammed the door open, her eyes frantically searching.

She found Alex and Reggie, playing a game in the living room with some of the kids.  Kate and Willie were drinking wine by the Christmas tree with Luke’s parents.  Bobby was there with Julie’s dad, and the rest of the kids were tearing around the house.

And then there she was, stepping into the room with a bright smile on her face, wiping at a spill on her shirt, and Julie was sobbing again as she ran across the room.

“Julie,” her mom said as she crashed into her.  “You’re back!  What’s wrong?”

“Mom,” she whispered between sobs, relishing in the feeling of her mom’s arms wrapping around her.  “Mom, it worked.  You’re alive.”

Later, she’d meet the friends she’d made in the 90s again.  She’d introduce Luke as her soulmate to her brother and their friends’ kids, and they’d thrill them with the stories of her time travel adventure.  She’d take in this big, wonderful family that she had and wonder how she got this lucky.

But, for now, all she wanted in the world was to hug her mom and never let go.