Juno's Kid
Authoress: Wee-Me
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from "Beetlejuice" except my own copy of the DVD so don't sue me. I'm just going to take the characters for a spin and then put them back where I found them.
Begin
'It would have to be on my watch,' Juno thought sourly, 'that the living find out about the dead. And I thought Betel was a pain in the neck. Ugh. Done with the Maitlands and Charles for the day, just the bimbo and the Kid left. Think I'll leave the Kid for last today.'
Juno had been checking in nearly every day for the three weeks since a Saturnian sandworm had busted up the impending wedding between Betelgeuse and the Deetz girl and it was starting to wear thin her patience. Not Lydia, the situation, the girl was the only bright spot. She was happy to have found the girl. Barbara kept pestering her for special privileges: including the garden as part of their home space, letting them go to Lydia's school events, etc. - which weren't unreasonable, but were impossible for her to allow. She could actually relate to wanting to go support the kid at school since she'd thought of doing so herself, but she couldn't do anything for them.
Adam was much easier to deal with because, like Charles, he was the quieter member of his couple and used to letting his wife take the conversational lead. He was also working his way through his handbook and mainly spoke to her to ask questions for clarification. Charles was the only one in the house, besides Lydia, who'd even touched his handbook for the living so he was in her good books for that even if she thought he was a twit. Honestly, what kind of man would ignore a good kid like Lydia and inflict Delia on her? It was cruel.
And that line of thinking brought Juno to the person that could, and did, really ruin her day on a consistent basis: Delia. She just wouldn't shut up! Juno would ask her if she had revealed anything to any other breathers (she was required to ask at least that question) and the silly "artiste" would ignore the question to show off her art. The daft cow was making an entire show based on Betel and wanted input on the accuracy of the details. The caseworker was tempted to use her lighter to set the hairspray cloud around the woman on fire, but she'd settled for lobbying her bosses to stop the art show. After a grueling ten minutes with Delia she was ready for a stiff drink, but she went to find the Kid instead.
Lydia was the quietest of the bunch and that was worrisome to the ghost, though she couldn't see herself admitting it even under threat of torture. The Maitlands were being good parents to her and she seemed happier when Juno checked on her through the mirrors, but something was wrong. In Juno's presence the girl always looked like Pandora after opening the box, all guilt and shifty movements. Finding the only breather she actually liked crying softly into a pillow after having to deal with the other four was too much and it pushed her to act.
"This ends now Kid. You're going to tell me what's wrong and you're going to tell me right now," she practically barked at the girl. More upsetting than her momentary fright at the sudden break in quiet was that Lydia's face went from sad to guilty on catching sight of Juno.
"Oh Juno, hi, I was just… Uh, I, um, when did you get here?"
"Cut the crap Kid. Explain to me why you look like you just found out you robbed an orphanage."
"Huh?" The girl looked genuinely confused so Juno took pity on her and explained a little as she lit up.
"What's with the guilt?" She waited expectantly for Lydia to speak, but the girl just fidgeted and bit her lip. 'Oh crap, are those tears?' she asked herself. She made a big show of sighing and puffing her cigarette before settling on the bed. "Kid… Lydia, I never had children of my own and I wasn't very social at your age, but even I can tell something is bothering you. So spill it before I tell Delia you need a mother-daughter talk. And don't look at me like that little girl, looks can't kill the dead."
The girl grumbled, but quit glaring. She seemed rather surprised Juno was trying to comfort her. When she didn't immediately pipe up the ghost prodded her with a look and one of her boney fingers. "It's not important Juno, really. I won't tell anybody about what happened and I won't call him. You don't have to bother with me anymore, I won't cause anymore problems." This seems to be the heart of the matter, it had the girl unable to make eye contact and turning her shirt hem into a folding fan.
"You aren't a bother Lydia. Why would you even think that?"
"B-because you hate the living. You told Adam and Barbara not to trust us and it's because of people like me, because we don't keep our word. You can't trust someone who doesn't keep their word." She sniffled, but kept her body rigidly turned away even as Juno wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.
"Oh Kiddo," Juno sighed, "what am I going to do with you?" She made a mental note to yell at the Maitlands for this the next time she saw them; honestly, who tells an emotional girl that people have been advised not to trust her? "Now first thing, the Maitlands shouldn't have told you my advice to them- that advice is standard and has nothing to do with you. I do believe most of the living are untrustworthy, but I think the same or worse about the dead. I warn more against the living because they're more creative. I think you are as trustworthy as any breather, as anyone, I've ever come across and you're special too or I wouldn't be talking to you and you'd never have caught his eye." She paused to see if her words were sinking in, they were a little at least, and caught the girl blushing and flinching at the mention of Betelgeuse's interest. That blush was something to file away for another day, the flinching and crying were enough for today. "I don't see why you'd feel guilty about Betel anyway, but don't. You agreed to his terms under duress and he knew better than to involve a child. Plus tricksters fully expect to fail at least part of the time. Trust me, if he can get past me busting him without holding a grudge, he won't hold this against you. I know him better than anyone and sadly he'll be back to his old ways in no time so quit worrying about it."
"I just feel bad though. Even if he tricked me I still proved that humans, alive ones, don't keep their word. He helped me and I got him in trouble."
Juno sighed, the smoke pouring from her lips and neck carefully sent away before it could bother Lydia (as always), and decided to go for a different approach. "It wasn't that simple from what I understand. But let's see: did you attack him?"
"No, I…"
"Did you get him swallowed by a sandworm?"
"No, that was Barbara, but…"
"Did you say his name?"
"I tried, but…"
"More than once?"
"Well, no, he was done with my vows so I figured I'd just let it play out."
'Gotcha now,' Juno thought. "So you would have gone through with it if the Maitlands hadn't gotten involved?"
"Well I wouldn't have had a choice…"
Juno interrupted her again smoothly, "Not what I asked. If no one had gotten involved would you have gone through with it?"
The girl chewed thoughtfully at her fingernail a while before nodding.
"Then you've got no reason to be beating yourself up. You made a tiny 'Hail Mary' play that didn't work. Hell, real brides get cold feet worse than that and he probably wouldn't have respected you if you hadn't tried something."
Lydia's eyes were all big and wet, shining hopefully out of a pale face red from crying, sometimes she looked so much like a lost little girl it hurt Juno's heart. She snagged a tissue from the box on the nightstand to wipe at the Kid's (her Kid's) face.
"Yup, Betel would never stand for a wimpy wife. He saw something in you, something special. I see it too. The fact that this is even bothering you shows me you're pretty special, most breathers wouldn't give a flying rip about what a bunch of ghosts and a dirty old poltergeist thought or felt." She leaned in conspiratorially. "I'll let you in on a secret: another reason I warned them about the living is that you people are clever and, for all their good qualities, the Maitlands scream 'please con us, we're bumpkins'. I was tempted to warn them about telemarketing scams, time shares, and emails from Nigerians claiming to need financial help too."
Lydia snorted with laughter before slapping a hand over her mouth in embarrassment or shock. "Juno, that's not nice!"
"But it made you laugh, and that's all I care about. It also happens to be true." She pulled the girl to her in another sideways hug and Lydia leaned against her completely at ease.
"Thanks Juno," Lydia whispered after a while.
"What for?" she asked against the top of the girl's head in surprise.
"For listening, making me feel better, lots of stuff. Nobody else got it; they don't see a problem with me breaking a promise. They act like he's the devil, even though he was mostly just doing what we asked. He listened to me and didn't do anything too bad to me, directly I mean. He wasn't such a good guy to be around, but…" She couldn't come up with the words, but Juno understood anyway.
"You don't have to tell me Kid, I've known him the whole time I've been dead. It's that 'but' that saves him every time, even if you know he's a jerk you find yourself thinking 'But…there's something about him'. He's my friend so I'm partial, but I understand him getting under your skin. Remind me to tell you about how he charmed some nuns sometime."
"Mmmhmm," Lydia agreed sleepily. Her head had slid down and lined up perfectly to listen to a heartbeat that wasn't there. She was lost in drowsy thought as Juno stroked her hair, she'd missed this kind of contact since her mother died. The ghost eased the kid into a reclining position like a veteran mother and she curled on her side closer to Juno.
"Crying tired you out, huh Kiddo?" she asked quietly.
Lydia made a small sound of agreement, or maybe of contentment. "Than's Jun-oh," she yawned. She made a noise, the sort Juno associated with fussy babies she'd encountered, when the ghost moved to leave.
"Okay okay, I'll stay a little while. Want me to be quiet or keep talking?"
"Mmmf hehe," the girl giggled sleepily, "you gonna tuck me in and tell me a story?" She cracked one eye open a sliver in time to see the older woman drop the blanket she'd been gathering up to spread over her. They both snickered and Juno lit up again after flicking the blanket over the girl.
"Oh haha. Yeah, you get a story now that you're tucked in, but I draw the line at lullabies. You don't want to hear me sing. So, once upon a time I met a pale dark-haired girl whose guardian aunt had killed herself. I had to go get the woman and bring her back to the office, but the girl spotted me before I could get out. Her name was Lysandra, but she mostly went by Sandra. I called her Girlie. She could see me as clear as day and she wasn't so bad so I kept in touch over the years." She ran a hand through her hair and wandered back through the years. "I went to her wedding and saw her baby after she gave birth and got out of the hospital. Cute little thing, all wiggly and big eyed. Girlie hyphenated her name, 'keeping some of herself' she always said, but I never used either of them anymore than I'd used her first name. She loved being a mother, told me it was easy if you let it be, and it broke her heart to leave her baby behind. She made me promise to watch out for the girl before she'd move on in peace. I didn't do such a great job, nearly forgot she'd ever had a baby."
Juno looked over Lydia's sleeping face, she'd been dead to the world before Juno started her story, marveling at how much she looked like her mother had at that age and wondering again how she could have missed the resemblance. She'd liked Lydia on her own merits before she'd discovered her parentage, but knowing she was Girlie's daughter made the connection between them even stronger. They had a loss and ghosts, both real and metaphorical, in common, but they also had a separate friendship. The Kid was special to her; she didn't have the words to explain it all. She went back to her story.
"I rationalized it away: it was unlikely a breather would like having me around, I didn't want to be around children, who could even say the girl would be able to see me? I think I was really afraid that she wouldn't like me and I'd lose my last link to Sandra. Then came you Kid and you were so special, you had the same gift your mother had with the dead, that same calm. I know I haven't kept my promise to her, haven't protected you, but that's going to change. I promise you right now that from now on I'll take care of you like you're my own."
She stood at last to go back to her regular work, these visits put her behind but she wouldn't trade them (even if the Kid's housemates were all irritating). She'd be back tomorrow and as often as she could manage from now on. Before she faded all the way out she made one more promise, this one to herself, "One day I'll tell her all this when she's awake."
End
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It was making me sad that my Magic School Bus story (a one-time dive into that fandom I hope) was at the top of my list and I hadn't posted anything yet for 2009 so here we are. I've been wanting to write all these Juno-and-Lydia-get-to-know-each-other moments that I have in my head (and kinda show up in my other stories) so here's one of the early ones.