DISCLAIMER: This is a not-for-profit story about characters that I'm borrowing. I promise, I'll put them back when I'm done!

A/N: To those who've reviewed (badkidoh, roolsilver, Darbanville, and Jessica) and keep reviewing (badkidoh!!), your comments and encouragement have kept me posting when common sense says I should stop! XD Anyway, writing this chapter was like mining for fish. So if it sucks, drop me a flame and we'll all have s'mores, mmkay?

PREVIOUSLY:

She took the cigarette and dropped it on the ground, where she proceeded to viciously grind it under her heel. "That's." Stomp. "A." Stomp. "Metaphor!" Stomp. "And NO smoking." Feeling unutterably drained, she hooked her arm through his to make him support some of her weight and said, "Let's just get this over with."

He quirked a brow at the sad remains of his smoke. "Yes m'm." He saluted, then kicked open the door.

They went through.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Four: In Which Our Hero and His Bride Make An Appointment

The grey doors opened on a dreary room designed to wear the soul down to hopelessness – in other words, it looked like a DMV lobby. It was filled with people, some of whom Lydia would hesitate to even call ghosts, they were so clearly nonhuman. Beetlejuice headed directly for one of the receptionists, but she dragged on his arm. "There's a queue, see?"

"Yeah, I saw it the last damn time I was here and I didn't bother with the fucker then, either."

"You can't do that," she said, aghast.

"Sure I can – watch me." He started off again only for her to pull him back again.

"I mean you shouldn't!"

He sighed gustily, looking at the ceiling as if beseeching a higher power for patience he did not possess to deal with this trial. Then, tapping his foot as his gaze turned to her, he asked, "And WHY is that?"

"Because it's…." As she looked into his hot green eyes staring out of his cadaverous black eye sockets, the words 'not polite' died unspoken. "How would you like it if you'd been waiting a long time and someone cut in front of you?" Thus having spoken, she maneuvered them into last place in a line that went on for a mile.

The construction worker who was in front of them abruptly turned his head, revealing the caved in half of his skull, and she realized he'd been nervously eyeing them.

Beetlejuice loudly announced, "I don't wait behind anyone, no matter what they do." He sneered at the skittish glances aimed their way.

Then the construction worker stepped to the side of the roped in maze of a line and said gruffly, "You and the missus can go in front of me, Mr. Juice." If he could remove the pieces of his hard hat, she had a feeling he'd be holding them in the classic 'Ai, Senor, The Banditos Are Coming' pose. They had hardly passed him with a murmured thanks from Lydia when the next person in line, and Indian man in a turban with dark bruises on his face bowed them ahead of him with a strangely angled arm. Then the next and the next and the next, until they were strolling arm in arm down the line like it was the parted Red Sea. Behind them, a wave of tense whispering broke out.

Wide-eyed, she asked in an aside, "What did you do the last time you were here?"

"I was applying for our marriage license, a' course." He smirked.

She blinked. "Do we need to renew that?" She hadn't realized that they'd needed one in the first place, but given the Neitherworld bureaucracy's penchant for paperwork, she probably should have expected it. Perhaps her time would have been better spent researching marriage arrangements instead of contract negotiations. She had skimmed that chapter in the Handbook, but clearly she'd missed important details while looking for mentions of the living marrying the dead.

"Nah, s'good for afterlife."

"Wait a minute – when did you have time for that?" She tightened her hand around his elbow as if he might run off and eyed him suspiciously. How long had he been scheming to trap her, specifically, in marriage?! His answer had the potential to change everything – if he'd fixated on her, it would make disentangling herself from this whole mess much more difficult. Entirely besides the vaguely flattering notion that she was the only one he'd ever proposed to, even if it was as unromantic as it gets without screechy, poorly-worded love songs.

"I was in a big fucking hurry." He rubbed his moldy stubble musingly. He couldn't exactly tell her that he'd heard ol' Chucky-boy and that fashion disaster discussing the ritual he planned to perform when they were carrying the model downstairs, and that, figuring out that it was actually an exorcism, he'd sensed a prime set up and rushed off to prepare for their upcoming nuptials instead of trying to prevent it. Somehow, he didn't see her being swayed by the fact that there was really fuck all he could have done about it while two inches tall.

"Uh-huh. And when exactly were you in this hurry?"

"Have I told you that's one hell of a dress?" He wouldn't meet her eyes. Mostly because his eyes had gravitated to her bust-line.

She rolled her eyes. "No. You do realize that I'll be able to read the issue date when I sign the marriage license."

"Ya don't gotta sign it, I did it for ya."

"You FORGED my SIGNATURE?!" Stopping abruptly, she realized she was shouting when every eye in the place focused on them outright, forgoing the furtive staring.

The tall, ragged and blood-stained black robed form of a bystander piped up in a surprisingly squeaky voice. "Is that really very surprising? Considering…." He waved his scythe at Beetlejuice.

Snapping around, Lydia said, "And who asked you?"

"Yeah, can it!" Beetlejuice added, wiping imaginary sweat off his brow at the near miss. Go diversionary tactics! She'd have been mad about his power of attorney whenever she found out about it, anyway. She was such a control freak. Don't do this, don't do that…blah, blah, blah.

Lydia elbowed him. "You shut it!"

Sheepishly tugging his hood back, the red-haired, freckled teenager said, "Sorry."

Looking at the thirty-something woman in a fairy princess costume hovering over him, Lydia asked, "Aren't you a…little young to be getting married?" She added, 'to her,' in her head.

The woman laughed deprecatingly, her bloody ruin of a throat wobbling, and said, "I know I've only been dead for five years and Ritchie's been kicking around the Neitherworld since the fifties, but," here she took his hand and they shared a loving smile, "we really connect, you know?"

"We're real gone," Ritchie said. "We met at support group. Not everybody understands what it's like to be stuck in a dumb costume forever."

"You wouldn't believe how awful it is." She leaned forward confidingly, the skimpy cut of her costume revealing her generous assets. "I think I've heard every dirty princess pun in existence."

Lydia checked out of the corner of her eyes to see if Beetlejuice was looking – she was pleasantly surprised to find that he was pointedly yawning and checking his three watches. "I might have an inkling." She held up her veil and smiled cynically.

Beetlejuice cleared his throat in a long and drawn out hacking fashion. "Nice chattin' with ya stiffs, but me and Lyds gotta get goin'." The costumed couple laughed as if that was funny as he yanked her away.

Lydia could hear them talking to each other: 'What's a nice girl like that doing with him?' 'I dunno, she wasn't very nice to me at first.' 'That's 'cause you don't know when to keep your mouth shut.' 'And you do? Practically told her enough to write a book.' 'You helped, so don't give me that…'

And then the progressively audible voices were out of ear shot.

Beetlejuice was stalking past the multitude getting out of his way and she had to scramble to keep up. A little out of breath, she said, "Don't think I'm going to forget about you forging my signature."

He snorted. "Wouldn't dream of it. Not that it's, y'know, technic'ly, a forgery."

"Really. Do tell," she said dryly.

"Ya remember when ya made me the happiest dead guy in the world by agreeing ta marry me?" He clasped his hand over his heart, as if adoringly.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "Yeah, sure. What does that have to do with it?"

"Weeeeeeeelllllll…."

"Spit it out – no, don't, just SAY it already!"

"That's like an oral contract, heh, oral…that basic'ly gives me 'carte blanche,'" he made air quotes, "with stuff like signing for you on the marriage license."

She nodded, pursing her lips. Slowly, she said, "And answering for me during the ceremony, right?"

"Yeah, that." He scratched at a particularly virulent green patch of mold on his neck.

"I had wondered about it." She resettled her arm around his and continued on down the line. Her eyelids were really getting heavy. It felt like the circles under her eyes were growing even as she spoke. "I didn't think it could actually count if I wasn't the one saying it."

His shoulders sort of un-hunched from their pre-emptive defensive posture and he gaped at her. "That's it? No elbows or glares or shoes thrown at me? Just…," he made his voice high and squeaky, "I wondered about it." Considering his previous performances, it was a rather poor imitation.

"Like you said at the time, it's not as if you wrote the rules." She fought back a yawn.

He opened and shut his mouth without saying anything, looking at her suspiciously. Maybe he shouldn't push his luck. He burst out with, "But I took advantage of an OBVIOUS loophole!"

She ignored his attempt to goad her, aware of the irritating fact that when she got sidetracked into getting angry at him, she never got any answers. Plenty of practice aiming, yes, but no answers. "Why's it written that way, anyway?"

Thrown off his game by her sudden temperance, he said, "So that both a' the schmucks makin' an agreement don't hafta clutter up the Neitherworld gettin' the paperwork done."

What he didn't bother to add, not being inclined to be particularly helpful at the best of times, was that it made things easier for ghosts bound to a particular haunting who couldn't come in person, or spirit as it were, which was an obscure bit of trivia she'd come across in her research into the Handbooks. The far-reaching applications were not immediately apparent in the wording, but if you picked apart the terms…yeah. It could apply to living people, or give you the power to carry out the agreement with just about anyone you made a deal with. The deplorable way he twisted it to his own use was actually sort of ingenious.

"Based on the assumption that your word IS your contract, huh?" she said musingly.

"Fuck if I care why." He snottily turned up his nose.

She sighed. So much for their grown-up, intelligent, rational exchange of information. At least he was keeping his various appendages to himself as they walked by the line. It would have been much faster to just go straight up to the receptionist, but by now they were smack dab in the middle of the byzantine structure of the roped off queue. All they could do was continue on with the assembled throng getting out of their way and pulling aside their neighbors as fast as they realized who was standing behind them with a grin on his face.

Although, with the sheer number of people in line, quite a few were beautiful women, or at least woman-shaped – the hawk wings and clawed feet of one clearly female creature with bones woven in her matted hair suggested harpy rather than ghost. The harpy was chatting over the rope to a different section of the queue with a shambling mess of limbs and heads, of which any of the five could be talking, sometimes all at once. It was wearing a mutilated business suit, with five ties, and carried a briefcase.

Lydia tried not to stare, fascinated, but Beetlejuice had no such compunctions. He did not even have the word 'compunction' in his vocabulary, never mind feeling the prickling of his conscience. Were his eyes straying to greener pastures already?

As soon as this mildly self-pitying thought crossed her mind, the comparison of cleavage to pasture bloomed into a full-blown mental image of her chest covered with grass like Beej's mold and tiny black sheep frolicking, which were much cuter than a certain garden snake which had recently inhabited her 'rolling hills.' This wrenched out tortured giggles which she tried in vain to smother. That was just as bad as moons!

"Whatcha laughin' at?" Beetlejuice asked, shaking her arm.

She looked up at him, laughter in her tired brown eyes. "Nothing, I guess."

He was quirking one wicked eyebrow bemusedly. "Anybody ever tell ya you're one crazy chick?" He smirked.

Her giggles caught in her throat. "Yeah," she croaked out. "Lots of times. I don't think…anybody ever said it to me quite like that, though."

Narrowing his eyes warily, he said, "Like what?"

Smiling shyly at him, she replied lightly, "Like it wasn't a bad thing. You know, you're pretty crazy yourself."

And now as they made their way to the front of the line like walking backwards in time, appearances getting progressively Victorian, she noticed him watching her in her peripheral vision, and it wasn't just her figure – although his gaze lingered on her breasts or waist or hips often enough.

Beetlejuice found himself bewildered and he didn't like it. One. Bit. And he couldn't even get mad about it, because she'd smiled at him. Nobody smiled at him, not like that – they bared their teeth or smirked or snarled. What business did she have smiling at him?! He liked it, yeah, especially the pale little blush that he'd bet just about anything went all the way down, but…he couldn't even figure out why callin' her crazy made her so goddamn happy. He was pretty sure if he said it again, with heartfelt conviction, she'd get pissed.

At the front of the line was a consumptive woman in a white nightgown billowing in an insubstantial wind. She barred their path, holding onto the collar of a miserable, well-built man in a priest's frock who was huddling at her feet. Burning with shadowy power, she shouted, "I have worked too hard and waited too long to give up my place in line! I was cheated in life, I WILL have my due in death!"

Beetlejuice, already annoyed, just mimed taking a deep breath and blowing out a candle. The ghostly woman's power snuffed out with a sizzle. He cackled.

"Ah…maybe I was being a bit hasty," she squeaked, looking terribly ordinary and timid with her nightgown and long brown hair hanging limply.

The priest lever himself to his feet like the cracking of a gargoyle and led her to the side with his hands on her shoulders. "Please forgive Gertrude – she's been a bit…carried away for the last century," he said in a hollow voice.

"NEXT!" the grumpy word resounded throughout the entire room for the first time since they'd gone in.

Lydia, looking at the woman who had been first in line and was now quietly weeping on the priest's shoulder, said, "Maybe…."

"Nah." Beetlejuice vetoed that idea immediately and dragged her forward. As they cleared the final roped in hurdle, he turned and made one of his nastier faces at the schmucks still in line. Much screaming and fainting ensued.

When Lydia turned to see what the hell was going on, he'd already put the medusa snakes away and his skin back on. Her eyes darted between the pandemonium that used to be a fairly orderly queue to his smugly satisfied smirk and decided she didn't want to know. With the way everybody'd been acting, he probably could've gotten the same reaction by shouting 'Boo!'

They went up to the free receptionist, who was glaring blindly ahead. "What do you want?" she said in a heavily accented voice. There was a name badge pinned to her draped Greek stola that read, 'Hi! My name is KARA, how may I help you?' Her immobile face read, 'You can go take a flying leap for all I care.'

Beetlejuice leaned against the counter, having taken this in at a glance, and said smarmily, "So, Kara-"

The receptionist interrupted. "It's Chara, actually."

"Whatever." He waved this little complication away. "We," he tucked Lydia into his side, "want to see a marriage counselor right away."

"You probably need it," Chara sneered, "but we are booked solid until nineteen hundred ninety five." Not once looking at anything, she jerkily tapped the appointment book in front of her. It flipped open to show pages filled in nearly black with names, dates, and times.

Out of the corner of his mouth, Beetlejuice whispered to Lydia, "What year's it now?"

"1992," Lydia said wide-eyed.

"Why don't we just blow this fucking popsicle stand and hunt down a preacher, whaddaya say?" He grinned, waiting for an answer, but if he had been alive, his heart would be beating madly right now – this was the crucial ploy, the pivotal moment. Would she give up her hare-brained scheme to curb his imaginary faults? He was counting on the fact that the newly dead clung to their old living concepts of time – it wasn't that long a wait, when ya had eternity.

"I dunno…." She had to admit, at least to herself, that not waiting for three years sounded like a great idea. If you ignored the consequences of getting married to randy poltergeist, that is. But she was pretty sure that she would not be able to string him along for years waiting for an appointment. He was bound to notice that she had a pulse eventually, if the need to eat and sleep and breathe and shower didn't tip him off. Getting older would be a big clue. And then what?

Meanwhile, the other two receptionists had stopped working, much to the consternation of the people they were supposed to be hindering, and were looking at Chara with mingled admiration and apprehension. The nearest one sidled over and murmured, "You do know that's B, E, T, E, L, G, U, E, S, E, right?"

"No, do not tell me…." Chara's face, stuck in a permanent screwed-up grimace, twitched.

"He won't go away unless he gets what he wants!"

"Then we are doomed, for all the counselors are busy."

"What's he want to see a counselor for?"

"I did not ask."

The last receptionist leaned over to contribute. "Well…what about Heidi? She has a break coming up, and she's always been a sucker for the ones that look like her daughter."

"B-"

"Shh!" The two flanking receptionists shushed Chara with much agitated gesturing that she couldn't see anyway, being blind.

"HE does not look like…?"

"No, but his girl does."

"Poor thing."

"What, for looking like Heidi's kid?"

"No, for getting stuck with HIM!"

"Shh! What if he heard you?!"

"Get back to work, O Morai." Chara rapped on the counter with a series of spastic movements to get the unlucky couple's attention. "We can fit you in today at seven after three afternoon. Go to the thirteenth office when the time is right." The appointment book flipped open and their appointment bled onto the page from within, squeezing between two lines and into the margins. Jerkily, she pointed down a hallway, barely avoiding putting her finger up Lydia's nose.

"Wait, what? You can?!" Startled out of their staring contest of wills, Beetlejuice's jaw dropped open.

Seemingly paralyzed like an ancient Greek statue in her pose of sybil service, Chara said, "Go. Go now."

"Thank you very much!" Lydia said, drawing Beetlejuice away by the elbow from the counter where he was glaring murderously at Chara.

"Yeah. Thanks a lot," he muttered back over his shoulder. "I'm gonna remember this, y'know!"

The other two receptionists shared a look that was part sympathetic grimace and part 'damn, I'm glad that's not me.'