#b&j

1840

Barnabas is too late by less than a minute. He wakes up on the floor next to Julia, who is unconscious and bleeding out fast. The Barnabas of 1840 bit her out of anger, and the wound is vicious. He is sickened by the contempt his past-self felt for her just moments ago, and by the blood staining his teeth. He tries desperately to staunch the bleeding, to will her to live, but its too late. Julia dies without regaining consciousness. 

Barnabas, horrified, sits by her body for what feels like hours; trying and failing to gather the conviction to prevent Julia from rising as a vampire. Although he mourns the choice, he finds he is more afraid to face this unfamiliar Time alone than he is of the alternative. 

With Ben’s help, he takes Julia to the hiding place chosen by his past-self, and lays her in the coffin intended for Roxanne. Barnabas rises first when dusk comes. After a terrifying few seconds the other coffin finally creaks open and Julia emerges. They lock eyes. Barnabas is speechless, but the look on his face is enough for Julia to understand everything. 

Barnabas naturally blames himself, and apologizes for inflicting this upon her. Julia in turn blames herself, for setting loose a premature version of him which wrought only pain and destruction. They agree that if there is any blame, it is split equally; as they both decided that they could not stand to be without the other regardless of cost or risk. The situation is fraught and painful for both of them, but it makes them closer and more codependent than ever. 

1840 continues along mostly the same trajectory as the show. julia and leticia getting possessed by judah is the only thing that would need major reworking, and i dont have any ideas for that yet lol. its not the focus of this AU 

Julia begins to journal her first-hand experiences as one of the living dead, and doing what little she can towards a cure for herself before they return to the future. Her experiences with barnabas and her background in psychology means she is more self-aware of the negative personality changes brought on by vampirism right out of the gate, but she is far from immune to them. Barnabas notices, and it grieves him. She has at least one nameless  victim. 

Angelique would be even more hostile and suspicious of julia as a vampire. This would still culminate in Angie kidnapping (coffinnapping?) julia, but instead of trying to turn her into a vampire she’d just try to destroy julia. in an equally convoluted and drawn out way such that either barnabas is able to rescue her or she gets the drop on Lazlo, biting and killing him and escaping. 

As on the show, angie has an abrupt change of heart and lifts the curse from barnabas. He is overjoyed, but there is nothing she can do for julia. as a show of goodwill, she agrees to guard julia during the day while barnabas is doing witch trial shit. 

i havent decided whether i want prof stokes to learn julia is a vampire when he comes to 1840. its a whole can of worms and i need a better grasp on the 1840 event timeline to weigh how much sense it makes. 

Look clearly i am team barnabasxjulia5evah, but i want to hold as true as possible to the events and characterizations on the show as possible, even when i find them inconvenient. i find that to be a more engaging writing challenge than going completely off book. That said, idk what to do about the whole angelique’s death and barnabas’s “one true love” statement. Me no likey. for now ive just got penciled in that angie dies, barnabas is really choked up about it in some way that pisses julia off. 

Barnabas, Stokes, and Vampire Julia all make a triumphant return to 1970.