You Are The Music In Me

Chapter 22

Emily stared at the young couple in front of her. She must be hallucinating. How could her deceased son possibly be standing in front of her. The young girl beside her son raised her eyes to look at Emily.

"Julie?" Emily said in disbelief.

No one was sure what to do in this moment. Sure, Luke had thought about the possibility of reuniting with his parents, but definitely not like this. And definitely not when he was finally about to kiss Julie.

"Um hi Emily."

Emily continued to stare at them with confusion. Then, as if a switch had been turned on, Emily dropped her bag of groceries and ran to Luke. She wrapped her arms around him Luke and started sobbing. Luke stood stiffly for just a moment before wrapping his arms around her and joining in her tears.

Julie felt a little awkward, not sure if she should stay or go in this moment. She needed to occupy herself before saying something to ruin this moment, so she decided to pick up Emily's groceries.

Emily pulled back from her hug to stare at her son. She placed her hands on his cheeks, wiping away his tears. "Luke... how is this possible? You look like you haven't aged a day." She turned to face Julie, "And Julie! What is happening here? Why are you with Luke? Did you realize he was my son?" Emily was quickly becoming overwhelmed. Luke brought her over to a bench and motioned for Julie to follow.

Luke scratched the back of his neck once again. "Okay Mom. I need you to take a deep breath, because I'm going to tell you what happened, but it's going to be hard to believe. That's it Mom, deep breath."

Julie tugged on Luke's sleeve. "I think we should maybe do this at your parent's house. It's going to be a lot to take in, and we might not want to do this in a public park?" Julie quietly suggested. Luke nodded.

"Mom, we're going to head back to the house, okay? Do you feel alright to drive? Julie and I will meet you there." Emily stared up at Luke in bewilderment. Luke looked back to Julie. "Jules do you think you can go with my mom? I... I just think it would be good for her to have someone in the car with her." Julie understood.

"Emily, do you feel ready to go?"

Emily was still in her stunned silence. Then big tears started streaming down her face. "No no I want to stay here. I don't want him to leave me again. Luke please, I can't let you go again." Luke hated himself in that moment. He had caused his mom so much grief by running away last time that she assumed he would do it again.

"Mom, I promise. I'm not going anywhere. But Julie can't drive on her own yet, so I need to drive our car." He held his mother's hands. "How about I drive in front of you, so that way you can keep your eye on me?" He gave her a slight smile, which she returned as she squeezed Luke's hands and nodded.

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the Patterson living room, where Julie had been not long ago. Julie and Emily were sitting on the couch in silence while Luke made a pot of tea. He didn't know what was protocol for telling your mom that you were a ghost who had kind of come back to life. But, tea was probably involved.

As the front door opened, all Emily and Julie looked up to see Mitch walk through into the room as he was busy taking off his jacket and looking at the mail.

"Emily, why is there a van outside? Oh, hello Julie." He said with a big smile on his face. He hadn't seen Luke yet. "What a pleasant surprise. What brings you –" Mitch lost all his words as his son walked into the room carrying a cup of tea for his mother. "Luke?"

Luke gave his dad a shy smile. "Um hey Dad. So I guess this is good timing. This means I only have to go through this once." He let out an awkward chuckle trying to make light of the situation. Julie jumped up and walked over to Luke. She grabbed Emily's tea and sat it down in front of her. She went back to Luke and squeezed his hand. She started to walk to the front door, but Luke knew he wouldn't be strong enough to do this on his own. "Jules. Can, can you stay?" Truthfully, Emily and Mitch had forgotten that Julie was even there. They didn't understand how Julie and Luke were acting like this was normal every day life, rather than coming back from the dead almost 25 years later.

Luke looked down at his fingers intertwined with Julie's. He began to tell his shoes about the night he died. He looked up when he saw his parents crying, but he knew he had to continue. He explained about the dark room, and how it barely felt like an hour had passed before they stumbled into Julie's studio. Julie took this opportunity to fill in how her mother had died, and how the guys had brought music back into her life. They decided to leave out the part about Caleb. As much as Luke knew his parents were happy to see him, he could already imagine the lecture they would give him if they knew he almost threw his second chance away to get revenge on Bobby.

"And after we played the Orpheum, I hugged the boys and could finally touch them. And now everyone can see them. We're not really sure how or why, or if they will be able to stick around, but um yeah, that's pretty much it."

Emily got to her feet, and grabbed both Julie and Luke in her arms. Mitch quickly got up and joined them. She kissed Luke's bent head, and whispered into Julie's ear, "Thank-you Julie. Thank-you so much. I'm so sorry you lost your mother, but I am so grateful that you've brought my baby back to me." Julie had been trying to keep her tears in – she needed to be strong for Luke – but now she let them flow freely.

"So, you've been around us? You were here on your birthday?" Mitch asked Luke.

"Yeah. I know it wasn't right that I left, but even when I was still alive, I would come back just to watch, though one time I thought Mom might have seen me. Even when we were fighting, I knew home was a safe place."

"And Reggie and Alex?" Emily asked.

"Yep, they're here too. Well not here in the room with us, but back at Julie's house. We've been staying there." Luke knew he had to fill in a few more details. "Julie obviously couldn't tell people that we were ghosts, so we made up a story that we were from Sweden, and didn't have anywhere to stay, so we've been living at Julie's."

Julie thought Emily looked a little sad, but didn't want to press it. While mother and son had reconnected, years of hurt didn't vanish instantly, and their relationship was fragile.

Julie watched Luke reconnect with his parents and never saw him look so happy – even at the Orpheum. They stayed for an hour before Luke remembered he had to get ready for work. He promised he would return the next day, and see if Alex or Reggie could come as well. Emily and Mitch wrapped Luke up in a tight hug, before Emily grabbed Julie and brought her into the fold.

Luke and Julie walked back to the van. Luke reached out for Julie's hand. They both smiled but said nothing. Luke didn't say anything as he drove Julie back to her house. He was going to drop her off before heading to work. He parked the car but neither moved.

"Luke –" 

"Jules –"

They both giggled. Luke gestured for Julie to continue.

"Luke, I... I don't know how to stay this, but-" Reggie started crazily banging on the window.

"GUYS! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? WE'VE GOT A BIG ISSUE!!"

--

Hey peaches. Just want to give you a heads up that I'm going to try to finish this by next week. I'm feeling like maybe I'm too old to be on here, or at least too old to be writing a jatp fanfic. But, I've got a wee baby, so sometimes she doesn't let me write as much as I'd like to. My birthday is on Wednesday, and that was going to be my deadline, but I might need a few extra days.