Even then it seemed silly to question why he had brought her there. The pavement burned her bare feet as the sun beat down on the both of them. She couldn't help but think how out of place Betel looked against the lush landscape surrounding the old highway.

"We'll be safe here." Betel muttered before turning and walking towards the trees. "You will be safe with me."

Lydia looked to her left before turning to her right. The road extended for miles. There was no one in sight but even in her dreams, she was not ready to believe him.

"How are you doing this?" Lydia asked. He brought her to a beach this time and though there was a faint light coming from somewhere she had no idea whether it was dusk or dawn.

"I'm just doing what you ask of me." Betel muttered from where he knelt in the sand. Watching him curiously, he dug through the loose ground. Betel Geuse was looking for something.

"What are you looking for?"

"The life you hid away. Buried like a dead pet. Wasn't dead yet, Lyds." Betel looked up at with a harsh glare. "Not supposed to bury the living."

Adam and Barbara used to tell her she grew up too quickly but Lydia knew she couldn't be their pretend little daughter forever.

Her father and Delia had told her she had thrown away a promising career in photography but Lydia had known no sane person would care for her rubbish.

They warned her about marrying at such a young age but Lydia was aware of the things Kevin Longstreath offered. She would be naive to turn him down and she had not been naive for a very long time.

In that time there was never regret. Until her dreams.

Since their almost wedding, Betel Geuse could feel the special connection between him and the mortal girl though he was close to positive it wasn't mutual.

It wasn't strong but he could feel her emotions clearly until the day Lance Klein died on prom night, her high school sweetheart.

After that there seemed to be no connection, he felt nothing from her and she became easy to ignore.

Until she called him.

Not that creeper she lay with. She was calling out for someone who knew her, who could help.

Betel was always a fool for a woman in need.

It wasn't by name Betel Geuse was called but when she stood there like a lost puppy looking at him expectantly, he knew she had called him all the same.

They had a connection and despite how she pretended not to fear him any longer like a child, the connection was strong.

Lydia was sending him through nightmares in her head, making him dig through the sand for her dead child that never existed. As he handed the curled, dirty corpse to her and watched her tremble he knew it represented something else entirely.

"I want to help you, Lyds."

Lydia became aware she was no longer dreaming. The beach in her dreams existed somewhere and she could taste the salty air on her lips.

Looking at her trembling hands, she watched the corpse fade into sand and fall through her fingers.

"I think I did something... wrong." Lydia looked up at Betel. He could feel the pang of hope spring up in her chest. Betel suddenly wished he had been able to marry the woman he knelt with. The right way. "Can you make it right?"

"For some crazy reason, babe, I'm gonna try my hardest."

They met in jungles and they met in churches. They met in school yards and hospitals and an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. One day Betel had gotten extra daring and they met at his place.

They talked about her job and his probation. They talked about her marriage and he called her a gold digger. He made her laugh at her pathetic life and she made fun of him for not even getting his right in the Afterlife.

As he watched her laugh, Betel knew the next place he would take her. Lance Klein's grave.

"I don't understand why we're here."

It was a lie, he knew it the way she was grinding her jaw.

"I can't just help you with jokes, Lyds. You gotta crappy marriage, I understand that. You hate your job, I get that too... but it's been ten years and the bitterness in your heart is still strong. Even I can't understand that sort of grudge."

Lydia was clenching and unclenching her fists.

"It was a stupid high school 'relationship' that failed like every other one. That's all."

Betel said nothing as he watched her deal with her anger in silence.

One day Lydia woke up and the anger was gone. The bitterness had disappeared along with it. Turning, she looked over at her snoring husband and decided she could no longer stay there. The place she was in had bitterness in its walls and she was through with that.

What she wanted was somewhere where she could be free.

With someone who could make her laugh.

Kissing her husband goodbye, she waved as he drove to work.

Then she called him. Three times she called him and this time she called him by name.

"It was about damn time, Lyds."

Happiness was relative.

According to the Deetzes and the Maitlands and anyone else who had the freedom to voice their opinion, Lydia should have been far from happy.

Betel Geuse? Of all people... err poltergeists?

Couldn't she at least have picked a friendly little ghoul?

Lydia lounged back on the not exactly green grass of the Neitherworld and sighed happily. From where she lay she could tilt her head and watch Betel arguing with the new neighbors.

She was perfectly happy... but honestly felt worried for Betel Geuse's sanity.

After all, he had been the crazy one to pick her.