I don't own these characters. I'm not entirely sure how far I want to take this story, I'm kind of just taking it as it goes. I think part of what made me want to write a piece was, alot of the fics I've read have Lydia anywhere between 14-17 and considering how old Beetlegeuse is, how inexperienced Lydia is, it made their relationship seem more than unhealthy. It made their relationship more about Lydia's first steps into sexual maturity, fueled by teenage hormones, instead of their deep connection. I wanted to bring Lydia back having had her own sexual experiences, being her own person by experiencing life in a way she wouldn't have been able to with Beetlegeuse with her.

She didn't need the pills. Now that she knew about the problems she faced, it would be far easier to keep a lid on the things that went bump in her head. It was all about willpower. Two days, three days, a week. No sweat. Oh, if Doctor Ingraham could hear her now. Believing that she could handle it alone, classic schizophrenic behavior. It's not as if I've got a choice. As soon as the prescription came, she would take the meds. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened over the past month, she reasoned. A short humorless laugh escaped her lips. Not entirely convinced.

She considered the drive to a pharmacy in the next closest city but quickly dismissed it. Mind over matter. Lydia sighed and went back up to her room. Beetlegeuse sat in her mirror nursing a bottle of whiskey, having come back every day since she first appeared. He hadn't told anyone else about her yet, not until he figured out how to make contact. As far as he could tell, she wasn't intentionally ignoring him. Something was blocking their connection. For the moment, Lydia might as well be just another breather.

She didn't look like one though. It stuck him how stark the contrast was between the last time they spoke and now. It wasn't even the age difference, although that definitely hadn't escaped his notice. She looked so guarded. As if she was preparing for a fight around every corner. His Lydia was full of life, this one had been drained of it. She could be easily pass for another face in the Neitherworld. When she had first resurfaced he was just so overcome by seeing her that the details slipped through the cracks. It was almost just as agonizing to see her as it was for her to be gone.

Lydia held up a freshly packed bowl and took a long hit. That was another thing that made her feel so foreign to him. The ghost was 600 years old give or take, the drugs themselves didn't upset him but rather her apparent need to self medicate. Why? What horrible thing had turned into his Lydia into this creature that drank and smoke like it was routine?

A thought pierced him that left Beetlegeuse feeling sick and hollow. What if it was him? His fault? I didn't mean for her father to get hurt! It was a stupid prank… He pressed his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes, unable to look at her.

"Je pensais que je te trouverais ici." Beetlegeuse looked behind him to see the old french skeleton leaned back against the door. He wore a dark brown blazer and a black turtleneck. Matching slacks clung to his hips, loose everywhere else. He clearly hadn't just come back from weightlifting.

"I'm too drunk to translate that, Jacques." The irritation in his voice made clear to Jacques that his presence was not welcome. As one of the few friends Beetlegeuse had, Jacques didn't particularly give a damn and was used to the cold hostility the ghost often applied when he felt someone was trying to help him. Connard

"Ai said, 'Ai thought I'd find yew here.'" Over the centuries they had spent in each others company, Beetlegeuse had tried a few times to learn french for the sake of his friend but that was more effort than he felt to exert presently.

"Sh`e eez beautiful, non?" Jacques pulled up a chair beside him and studied Lydia. Beetlegeuse felt a stab of possessive anger though didn't know why. Only that he wanted to hold Lydia away from Jacques gaze.

"You aren't surprised to see her though." Beetlegeuse's voice held an accusatory tone. Jacques clicked his teeth and leaned back. Without taking his eyes away from the mirror he replied with the same level of accusation.

"Yew don't visit mor than evairy few months for years et zen sudden-lee yew're here evairydai? Of curse she's back. We aren't stupid."

"I was going to say something, I just needed to figure out- Wait, we?" The skeleton shot him a withering look. Beetlegeuse groaned and took another swig from his bottle.

"Oui. Ginger adaired Lydia, she comes here from time to timé. She eez 'urt zat you kept zis from us. Per'aps we couldn't help but at ze vairy léast we could endure zis torment togethair. You could lean on me ét not zat bot-tell." Beetlegeuse looked down at his feet, not knowing how to reply. Jacques had known him for an age, there wasn't any excuse he wouldn't see through. Jacques turned back to the mirror and pulled a cigarette case from inside his blazer.

Wordlessly he offered Beetlegeuse one which he gladly accepted. Smoke snaked out Jacques's eye and nose sockets, and with every word he spoke, smoke puffed out from under his zygomatic arch, the bones that made up his cheekbone.

They talked about Jacques's new workout regimine, about Ginger's appearance in a local dance performance, but mostly they talked about anything that wasn't Lydia. When Lydia sat face to face with them at the vanity to finish up some reports from work, the two abandoned their conversation.

"What eez zat bot-tell by her bed?" Beetlegeuse dragged his eyes away from Lydia to the object in question. He pursed his lips, shaking his head.

"I'm not entirely sure. It's some kind of medication, but as for what it does or why she's taking it? At first I thought it got her high, but I'd be able to tell if there was something other than pot in her system. She always looks on edge when she takes it, maybe it's anti-anxiety." Beetlegeuse's lip curled as he spoke, anger flaring that he couldn't protect her even now. Jacques considered him for a long moment, deciding how best to approach his point.

"Have you considaired eet eez bécause of us? She left without a word, for a decadé, Bee-téllgeus, and now eez takéng zum drug zat ai believe might be why she cannot see us." Beetlegeuse had trouble swallowing. Jacques's words sent icy tendrils through him, giving voice to the thoughts Beetlegeuse had tried very hard to avoid over the last month.

"What would you have me do, Bones?" The words came out more vehemently than he'd intended. He cleared his throat and when he spoke again he voice was barely audible. "Just leave her?"

"Oui."

Lydia found that paperwork gave her an excellent reason not to be alone with her thoughts. It didn't matter that she had already written these reports at work, she rewrote them with more detail and clarity, knowing her boss would appreciate the precision.

Beetlegeuse sat alone, Jacques having excused himself after he'd said his piece. He had laid his hand on the mirror as he watched her, considering what his friend had said. She was right there. How could he leave her? But how could she leave him to begin with?

She sighed and stared into the vanity. Part of her, a small part she had done her best not to give credence to, had held out hope she wasn't crazy. That it was all real, that he was real. Nothing over the past month had lead her to believe this though. If the ghost with the most hadn't shown up by now, it clearly was all in her head. She pressed her hand against the glass, knowing she was in dangerous territory. She was off her medication and if she did anything to trigger a break, her parents weren't there to bring her back to reality this time.

The spot where her hand was felt icy. She pulled it away, running her fingers around the length of the mirror. The surface was cool to the touch, but the spot she pressed her hand against was easily twenty degrees colder than the rest. When she placed her hand there again, the glass began to sweat against the heat she exerted. Her heart raced and her head felt dizzy.

Beetlegeuse concentrated all his energy, all his juice into the spot where their hands met, willing her to feel him.

"LYDIA!" He ground out between his clenched teeth.

Lydia… Her head snapped up and she yanked her hand away, breaking the connection. No. She was being stupid. Kaitlyn had warned her it wasn't healthy for her here and she didn't listen. Lydia threw open her bathroom door and emptied her stomach into the toilet. The aftertaste of alcohol mixed with chime triggered a fit of dry heaving. Having been conditioned by her doctor against this kind of behavior, she was overcome by nausea.

Beetlegeuse stared uncomprehending at the scene before him. She had heard him. It made her vomit. He was used to people finding him disgusting. He didn't bathe, there was moss of some kind growing around his white blonde hair which was more like a knotted thicket than than hair. His teeth were yellowed and his clothes were wrinkled. Of course he was disgusting. But not to Lydia. Lydia would laugh when he pulled rats out of his pockets. Lydia, who had spend hours once collecting and making him chocolate covered beetles. Lydia, who thought the cobwebs and unidentified slime of the roadhouse was 'Deadly-vu', vomited when she felt him.

That was enough his cold dead heart could take for one day. The room spun as he stood to leave and after a second of reconsidering, he decided the corner would be a lovely spot to sleep it off.