A/N: This story, originally written by "Zee's Girl aka Ro", has the same title and same basic plotline up to the end of chapter 2. After that, I take the liberty of continuing the story that unfortunately could not be finished by the original authoress.

To enhance your reading, try listening to the songs on Evanescence's album "Fallen".

"Adam, honey, I'm worried." Barbara looked down over the pale and fitfully sleeping form of Lydia and she knitted her eyebrows in care. "This is the third day in a row she's been sick."

Adam Maitland, who was busy trying to fix the leg of a broken chair that usually sat under the desk, glanced over. "The doctor said it was only a stomach flu, Barb. She'll get better."

"But school-…"

"Honey-…" he grunted as he tried to hold the two splintered pieces perfectly still as they dried. "Her health is more important that her work. We should just leave it alone until it gets better. They gave her medicine, didn't they?"

"Just antibiotics. But this looks so bad…" Barbara sat down gingerly on the edge of the mattress, smoothing the girl's tousled hair out of her sallow face. "I just feel like it's more than it seems to be."

"Well, that's how it always is. Always looks worse than it is. Don't worry, Barbara."

He finished the chair and left it upside-down to securely dry. Crossing over, he took his wife's hand and led her from the bedroom and towards the attic. "She's still alive, Barb. And living people still get sick. She'll get better."

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice was livid. Not only had he wasted six months on the other side waiting to get reprocessed, but he'd also been banished to the urban part of the Neitherworld where he now lived. To add insult to injury, he'd had to shell out a lot of cash to get his head resized.

The roadside motel he now lived in was dingy at best, stocked with the most diverse insect and fungus life this side of a public high-school bathroom. While that was no problem for him, it was still meant as a punishment and he resented it.

And all because that little backstabbing harlot ruined his one and only chance to get out for good.

He tossed and turned in the overstuffed, threadbare easy chair he was sitting in, trying to get comfortable. But with each prick and poke of the loose springs stabbing into him, he remembered that day with more and more upsetting clarity. Never mind the fact that he could've saved the Maitlands and slowed down the recovery so they couldn't have screwed up the wedding; the Deetz girl could've just stuck to her word and said "yes" instead of making him waste time impersonating her voice.

Of course he knew she wouldn't have come willingly. And forcing the marriage was just so time-consuming. He groaned in frustration; they should've gotten it done in the Neitherworld, where he could've just as easily found decent witnesses and a reverend. He should've just taken her over and all his problems would never have happened.

"Be-atlejuice…" a french-accented voice called from down the hall. "Why are 'oo so down in zee dumps? Ginger and I were 'eaded out to go shopping. Want to come?"

Beetlejuice shot the doorway a deadly look and snarled. "Kind of brooding here, Jaques!"

"Oh, sorry. See 'oo in a few 'ours."

The ghost waited until he heard the front door close before getting up to pace angrily. It was no longer about getting out; it was about getting revenge. It was about getting his own back. How dare some living-world broad get the better of him?

Because she didn't go through it, he never got reimbursed for his services to the Maitlands, however unappreciated and unneeded they were. So, the way he figured it, he was setting out to get back what belonged to him anyway.

Lydia tossed and turned in her bed, dreams and nightmares one and the same in her mind. Her half-opened eyes focused on nothing around her as she remained in deep REM sleep. Her chest rose and fell in erratic patterns as her gut roiled, screaming to be settled.

So much darkness and…neon lights. The whole wide world is spinning. I'm falling, falling! Stripes and stripes and stripes.

Her mind raced, delusional in its heavy sickness. Nightmares of ghoulish faces and familiar people plagued her, with blood and bone and bright, harsh lights. She wanted so badly to get free, to wake up or fall asleep. But she was caught in it and was slowly suffocating in it; drowning in it.

Lydia Deetz was indeed dying in it.