A/N: I pretty much finished one of my stories, and there have been no demands for a sequel, so I thought I'd start a new one to not finish! Actually, just kidding, this has been sitting around on my hard drive for ages. I thought I'd post it for a lark. And there's even part of the next chapter already written, so if anyone actually likes this there might be an update within the year! Exciting!

Chapter One: Accidents Happen

"C'mon, Lydia, there's going to be a slammin' party at the Dee Frat tonight."

"I've just got one more to develop…. And it's Delta, not Dee." Lydia looked over from where she was clipping up a dripping photograph, and was just able to make out her friend's face in the dim red light.

"Whatev, it's all Greek to me," Gabby said, her eyes glinting in the shadows of her face and she rolled them dramatically. "You need to get out more. You're gonna kill yourself for art someday, working so hard." She jumped off the stool she was perching on and headed for the labyrinth of curtains around the door, shielding the room from outside light. "Ciao! Gimme a call when you're done being boring."

"So, never, then?" Lydia called back.

"Smartass!" And then Gabby was gone, and Lydia could really concentrate on her work, and the amazing effects one could achieve simply processing the paper correctly.

Only one other student was still working, Mike, a perpetual procrastinator. He had long, lank hair he was always flipping out of his face in a move too girly for words, and he was never on time for anything. He was also incapable of working quietly, but Lydia had gotten accustomed to tuning out the sounds of bottles opening, chemicals being mixed, the splish splash of tongs in baths, and even the way people muttered to themselves or their photos when things were going right, or more usually, wrong.

But when he started cursing loudly it drew Lydia out of her trance. She turned to ask him what the hell was his problem and stopped cold.

He was carrying a tray one-handed with a bunch of open bottles and hopping in place on one foot, clutching at his other foot.

"What the fuck!" Lydia said. "Are you trying to kill us both? !"

"I stubbed my toe on this stupid shelf!" he said, and then tried to kick the solid steel shelving. It didn't work.

Lydia watched in slow motion as the tray full of hazardous and volatile chemicals tumbled out of his hand as he shouted in incoherent pain. The red light made it difficult to tell apart the liquids glugging out of the carelessly left-open bottles, but as they mixed on the floor the sharp scent that normally pervaded the dark room doubled and tripled. It was like bleach and rotten eggs and battery acid, and curiously, a hint of almonds. The non-reactive tiling started smoking.

She started coughing immediately and tried to pull up the neckline of her black smock out from under her apron to cover her mouth. That dumb jackass had been right next to the door and had already deserted her, the asshole, without even a cursory attempt to use the spill kit that was two feet away. She was halfway across the room before she even realized she'd told her feet to move it or lose it. Then it got complicated. She couldn't just charge through the puddling chemicals, they'd eat through her ballet flats like something that gets eaten very quickly, and then she wouldn't be going anywhere. What a day not to wear her clunky combat boots!

The world was spinning now and her lungs wouldn't work right. With desperate strength she upended one of the heavy work tables over the spill and she…almost…made it. Lydia collapsed into the black out curtains and managed to puke into a convenient waste bin, which had never been convenient before because it was the only one in the room and as far away from where she preferred to work in the back corner as possible. She could feel the handle of the door, but she couldn't struggle past the damned curtains to open it and as everything got dim, she thought, 'I guess today was the day.'

Then she opened her eyes. The ceiling was different. It wasn't tinted red, for one thing. She got up off the floor slowly, and spent an inordinate amount of time staring at a potted plant, taking in the lack of suffocation, nausea, twitching death throes, and really, any feeling at all.

"Take a number, and have a seat."

Lydia glanced over and blinked at a blue woman with a 'Miss Argentina' sash, who was busily filing her nails behind a receptionist's window.

"I'm…dead, right?" Lydia asked.

There was no pause in the nail-filing. "Uh-huh."

"Shouldn't I be…haunting something?"

Miss Argentina rolled her eyes and smacked the nail file onto the desk. Glaring at Lydia, she said, "Do you think you're alive?"

Lydia raised an eyebrow. "No."

"Then take a number and have a seat. Your case worker will be with you sometime this century. Next time, make an appointment."

"To die?" But Lydia grabbed a numbered paper from the ticker and pulled. And pulled and pulled. Millions, billions, what comes after the one that comes after billions? Her number was somewhere thereabouts. It was so long it dragged on the floor as she headed over to the seating area.

It was all oddly familiar. The blue stucco walls, the black and white tiles, the dead beauty pageant receptionist. Like a story she'd heard a lot when she was younger. The couches were mostly full, except for one where a guy with a shrunken head was sitting by himself, impatiently tapping his white patent loafers and checking his watch every five seconds. He looked kind of familiar, too. Especially the tacky maroon tux. Once, she'd imagined that…no. She wasn't going to think about any of that. It had just been a bad time in her life, her therapists had assured her. The mind had strange ways of coping, it was normal to fantasize, but she had to let it go – even if the memories kept trying to crawl back in.

Anyway, she wasn't going to spend an eternity waiting on her feet. She drifted over and asked, "Is this seat taken?"

"Does it look like anyone's sitting their ass in it?" was the rude, squeaky answer.

She sat down. Then she reconsidered, and stood up again to pull off her rubber apron, taking off her protective gloves and stowing them in the apron pocket before wadding it all up and sitting down again.

"Dammit, make up your mind!" the guy shouted, sounding like he just sucked on a helium balloon. Then he actually looked at her. "Although I can see why you might be nervous, sitting next to a stud like me." He licked his hand and smoothed back his hair, the tininess of his head compared to his hand making the gesture seem like he was playing with a doll, one of those makeover Barbie heads, albeit one that had gotten attacked by hyper three-year-olds with green crayons and then chewed on by a dog.

Lydia edged away and stuck the wadded up apron between them.

He leaned in closer. "Hey, do I know you?"

She leaned back, and hit the arm of the couch. "I doubt it. How long have you been dead?" She grimaced.

He shrugged and leaned in even farther, so that they were almost horizontal. "Six centuries, give or take a few decades." He squinted at her, scratching his miniature stubble. "I swear I've seen that face before. Did you maybe used to have," he asked while making a sort of exploding motion over her head, "black hair or something?"

Blinking, she removed his still waving hand from her air space with one careful finger. "Uh, yeah. I stopped dying it a couple of years ago. Maybe you knew an ancestor of mine?"

"Huh," he grunted and sat back. She was just about to relax when he slyly insinuated his arm over her shoulder and said, in as low a pitch as he could muster, "So, ya get tired of the carpet not matching the drapes, or what? C'mon, you can confide in me!"

"That is none of your business!" Lydia shoved him off.

"Hey!" he squeaked. "I'm just tryin' to be friendly!" He grabbed her hands.

A painful jolt traveled up her arm from her left ring finger, where his flesh touched the ring that had resisted all attempts to remove it. From the way he let go like his cat was on fire it was obvious that he felt it, too.

"What the hell was that?" He grabbed her hand more carefully, his long nails and rough calluses tingling as he dragged them across her palm. He turned her hand and stared, frozen, not even pretending to breathe, at the slim gold band set with a red stone. "Where'd you get this?" He finally looked up, his eyes hard in his shrunken face.

"I…" Lydia swallowed down the indistinct memories that surged up, memories that thousands of dollar of therapy and medication had told her were false. But, hell, who would believe in ghosts like a dead guy, right? "I actually don't remember," she said, "but I read my old diaries and I guess I used to believe that it was the wedding ring in a cracked out ceremony where this poltergeist named Beetlejuice tried to force me to marry him."

He jumped up, dragging her along. "It starts with an 'L'! L-L-" He snapped his fingers. "Lydia!"

She frowned. "How did you know…?"

He clasped all of their hands to his chest. "It's me, babes! The Ghost with the Most!"

"You seriously expect me to believe that your name…is Beetlejuice." She leveled a stare at him.

"Quiet down out there!" Miss Argentina bellowed.

"Aw, put a sock in it!" he bellowed back.

Lydia finally worked her hands free and sat down again, crossing her legs, determined to ignore him.

He loomed over her, propping an arm on the back of the couch. "Say my name again and I'll prove it to ya."

Apparently he wasn't going to let up. So, with a bored sigh, she gave in, absolutely sure that this would prove him wrong for some reason. "Beetlejuice."

Instead he laughed maniacally and pulled on his ears until his head popped to a normal size. The effect this had on his grin was downright disturbing. "Finally!" he exalted.

Lydia was beginning to realize the depth of her mistake.

"Now, we're going to go talk to Junie, because this has got to be a mistake. There's no way you can be dead!"

"I'm fairly certain I died," Lydia protested to no avail as he hauled her up off the couch again and began dragging her off. "Also, it's not my turn."

"Sure it is!"

"But the sign-"

The sign exploded.