Okay. Disclaimer. Still doing that, huh? I know Beetlejuice isn't mine, but why the heck can't I pretend? Oh well, Beetlejuice, Lydia, the Maitlands, Prudence, Bertha, Claire, Prince Vince, Juno, the Neitherworld, other assorted characters... Nrggghhh.... Not mine.

For the love of mercy, isn't that bad enough? Don't sue, too!

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This is a short chapter, for this fic, but it has a heck of a lot in its pages.

RunLyllithRun got me thinking, with a question she asked. Here's my interpretation of an answer, for all to see.

Did anyone else get the feeling that Beej was lying, when he said he'd never been in love? I'm not saying anything conclusive, just that a guy as guarded of caring about anyone as him, maybe he has a reason. And maybe that's why he could be friends with Lydia too... She was a kid, just a 'little girl,' not a woman. He couldn't fall in love with her, and have her break his heart. I'm just saying... He's been around centuries... The odds of him never having cared about anybody, in all that time? And still able to care for Lyds so easily?

Well, that's my two cents given. The chapter has nothing to do with my suspicions, but with the title I've given this chapter in mind, the next few pages should prove a doozy... Can you believe I wrote them all today? Well, it is after midnight, but I still stand that it counts.

Unfortunately, this probably does not mean I'll be able to able to write a new update everyday. But thanks for asking! (Assumes you've asked...)

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Lydia didn't know where she was when she woke up- In her defense, she had every reason to believe she was waking up in her own bed, in her own room, as she had pretty much every morning of her young life. What was quickly apparent, was that she wasn't sleeping alone… Someone large was squished against her, their arm thrown across her body. Someone with a deathly chill, and smelling unmistakably of Beetlejuice.

She sat up with a sound of anger, before she was completely awake, remarkably like a yell, even as she kicked away from him with both feet. Embarrassed, confused, and unable, for the life of her, to remember what had happened the night before, for the two of them to end up sleeping together.

This left Beetlejuice to be woken by her panicked shout, and before he could get his feet under him to react, to find two small feet buried hard in his gut, around the same time the girl clubbed him over the head with her flailing. He roared, yanking away, wondering what the hell had just attacked him, and fearing, for one insane instant, for the girl… Before he realized that she was the source of his current beating.

He eyed her, baffled, as she continued scooting away from his across the forest floor, her face twisted in fury… Only to slowly falter in confusion as she seemed to realize, no, this was not her room. "What the fucking hell?" She muttered, using both hands to push the hair from her eyes, and taking a long, slow look around. The poltergeist didn't budge so much as an inch, waiting for the girl to actually finish waking up.

Looked like she was the kind of chick who was a whole hell lot of fun the morning after…

Slowly, baffled expression still in place, she turned her attention back to Beetlejuice, who wasn't sure if he should be pissed off, or laughing his ass off. He settled for rubbing his gut, giving her a doleful little glare… Which finally seemed to melt through her confusion, because a look of sudden understanding, and horror, washed across the goth girl's features.

"Oh fucking hell!" She muttered again, turning the brightest shade of crimson he would have ever thought her pale skin could turn. "Fuck, are you all right?"

Beetlejuice milked his wounded look a little longer, no longer even annoyed with the girl… It wasn't like it was the first time he'd woken up to that reaction after all, and did his best not to fold over laughing, at what she must have assumed. "Hell of a way to wake up, Lyds…" He noted, serious as anything, despite the effort it took to be so. "What the fuck exactly did you think was going on?"

The goth girl, amazingly, now flushed with so much blood to her face, he half expected her to pass out. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" She cursed roundly behind her hands, trying to disappear between her widespread fingers. "Oh god, I'm such a fucking idiot…"

He couldn't help it, he started laughing, grabbing onto his knees to keep from falling over, and then, a moment later, tipping backwards anyway. After what felt like an eternity, tears almost forming in the poltergeist's eyes as he gasped for breath, Lydia's soft, embarrassed giggles joined his.

Grabbing his upturned knee with one hand, he yanked himself to a sitting position, and eyed her with a smirk. Her head bowed so far that her dark locks brushed the ground, her shoulders shaking with soft little paroxysms of laughter… With nowhere to hide from the embarrassment of her assumption, and his ensuing hysterical laughter.

"I swear you did that on purpose…" She snickered, finally lifting her head again, and letting him see her face returned to a normal healthy color, while her eyes shone with life. "God, what was I thinking? That a shot of rum got me drunk enough to end up in bed with you?" His grin faltered, just a little. "I'd have to be totally hosed for-!"

Abruptly she broke off, and the two just considered each other, suddenly the humor seeming to die out of the situation. All he could think was, Hell, my own babes, and she'd have to be wasted? Even if she wasn't old enough… There was an ego crippler, right there.

Meanwhile Lydia was biting the inside of her lip repeatedly in anger, at her own suggestion that he'd do something like that. To her. Both completely oblivious to the fact that the other was upset at all.

After a minute of this, Beetlejuice had had enough, and pushed himself to his feet with an exaggerated clumsiness, offering the goth girl his hand. No sooner had she accepted it though, before she could pull herself up, than a new thought gripped him, and his lips twisted in renewed humor. "You realize you're dead now, right babes?"

For about the length of a thought, Lydia just stared at him, not understanding. Half-risen. At first she thought he meant dead-dead, and was absolutely baffled… She hadn't been that sick! Had she? Or was it something about spending the night in the neitherworld, or-?

Spending the night in the neitherworld. As in, not her room. As in, not at home. As in, and this was the big one, not anywhere where her parents knew where she was. Lydia's jaw dropped, and a little, strangled sound emerged. "I am so dead." She agreed softly, finally standing, with a good deal more effort than she'd expected. Beetlejuice just gave her a sympathetic little smirk. Lydia wondered if she was too old to put herself up for adoption.

"Come on, babes…" He cackled softly, once she'd stood there for the better part of a few minutes, trying to find an excuse for why she'd been gone, where she'd been… And any, any reason at all, to put off going home. He caught her by the wrist, ignoring her internal struggles, and pulled her carelessly against him…

And paused. There it was again, something different about the girl. He gave her a little, additional squeeze while she was distracted, to puzzle it through… And it hit him, like a punch to the gut, as he realized what he should have realized some time before. Lydia Deetz was no longer a little girl. The young goth girl in his arms, was actually a young woman.

He just stood there, baffled, more than anything else. He didn't have an idea in hell how to approach this one… Lyds? A woman? That was a little more 'change' than he had counted on… Hell, he'd known it had to happen sooner or later, I'd just figured, you know, later!

Lydia brushed her hair back from her face, and looked up at him, having no way to know the epiphany that had just struck her best friend. She looked puzzledly at the poltergeist, still just sort of staring down at her, completely at a loss for what to do. She seemed to misinterpret why though, a grateful smile crossing her lips a moment later, before she laid her head down against his chest, and sighed. "Thanks for trying to think of a way out, but I think I'm totally screwed here, Beej. Let's just get this over with."

She still felt so fucking small against him… But there was no mistaking now, the difference in the shape and feel of her tiny body, against his. How the hell had he missed this? And what the hell was going to happen now? He'd gotten so used to hanging around with the kid… Kid being the operative word there. What the hell, now he was going to be hanging around with a perfectly-!

"Uh, sure, Lyds." He grunted, unconsciously loosening his hold on her, like suddenly he wanted some distance between them, while he figured this the hell out. She just continued to stare at him quizzically, blissfully unaware of the way his perverted mind was doing its best to turn… Blocked at every angle by the realization that this was Lyds, his Lyds, and how hard he'd been trying, just a few hours before, to make sure he didn't lose that.

Above all else, he couldn't screw this up… or he'd lose her. "Hold on, babes." He heard himself mutter gruffly, pulling them into the dark place of brilliant heat and cold caresses, which she seemed to prefer to the mirror more and more these days. He tried to read something into it, and couldn't. The girl just liked weird stuff like that.

They touched lightly onto her carpet, only half a span of breaths later, much to Lydia's surprise. Or so it seemed to him, when she looked up, puzzled. "In a hurry?" She griped good-naturedly, starting to draw away…

Only to be grabbed by the poltergeist again, hard, and drawn against him, for less than the length it took her to wonder what he was doing. Then he let her go, along with whatever he might've been thinking to himself to do, and managed a crooked grin in the girl's direction. "Places to go, people to see!" He agreed flippantly, giving her a little mock salute, before twisting his heels into the carpet… And he was gone, just like that.

And as he always did when things were weird between him and the living girl, he left her trying to figure out just what the hell had just happened, while he went off and tried, impossibly or not, to get himself drunk… And just not think of anything at all.

Especially giving a damn about anyone.

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Lydia peeked around the edge of her doorway, listening for the sound of strange voices in the house, to warn her that her concerned parents had called the police. Again.

When so such sign was forthcoming, she left her room completely, and looked up and down the little hall in puzzlement, wondering at how utterly calm the house seemed. Slowly she walked down the hall, until she stood at the top of the stairs, and found herself overlooking a tight little discussion between her mother and father. Neither one had noticed her yet, too absorbed in what was, apparently, an increasingly agitated conversation…

And then her mother looked up, saw her, and made a quick, hurried movement, motioning her father into silence. The two greeted her, respectively, with a strained smile, and silence. "You're finally awake," Her mother noted, sounding as tired as if she'd been the one out at all hours. "Good. Barbara saved some breakfast for you. It's probably starting to get cold."

A moment of inane surrealness hit the girl, making her eyebrows fly together in disbelief, but she did her best to quickly disguise the look, just nodding, and coming the rest of the way down the stairs. She didn't look at either of them again as she passed them… Less for her mother's awareness of her personality, and ability to read her, than the sense that nothing, nothing, could be hidden from her father at the moment.

As she passed them, safely making her escape into the kitchen, she heard their furious whispers starting up again. Apparently it was not a boring day in the Deetzs' household… Now to see how the Maitlands were greeting the day. With luck, they hadn't noticed she was gone either.

"Hey, Barb." She greeted her godmother, surprising the woman with a quick squeeze around her waist, making her friend yelp good-naturedly. "What's for breakfast?"

"Lydia!" The ghost woman looked at her with a scolding smile, dropping a kiss lightly on top of her head, and returning the friendly squeeze. "When did you get up?" Then, almost in the same breath, "Would you like some eggs? Bacon? Hash-browns?" A small pause, "Coffee?"

"You really went all out, huh?" Lydia smiled, giddy with the idea that she was actually going to get away with her little blunder… And pointedly not answering Barbara's first question. "I think I'll have everything, I'm starving!"

"Hm. About time you got your appetite back, young lady." Adam noted with mock sternness, glancing at her over his paper. "Maybe now you'll actually start growing again!"

The goth girl stuck her tongue out at him, making him smile, and turn back to his article… All the while wondering if her appetite had been a little odd recently. After a moment, she determined that no, it hadn't… She just hadn't been eating at home was all. Now to explain that one…

Barbara placed a hot plate in front of the girl, overflowing not only with the aforementioned goodies, but also links of sausage, chunks of ham, and fresh biscuits, covered in gravy. Lydia stared at the plate, filled with far more food than she could ever eat alone, and wondered vaguely what the ghost woman was trying to overcompensate for. "Wow… Barbara… It looks delicious…" She murmured weakly. Maybe she was being punished?

"I got up early… Didn't know what to do with myself…" She was avoiding her goddaughter's gaze, wiping her hands off methodically on the front of her dress, offering a very forced smile. "I don't think your parents ever really went to sleep last night. I'm not sure how anyone was supposed to get any sleep in this house, with those two-!" She'd actually started to sound agitated, breaking past her calm façade, and broke off as soon as she realized she was doing it, just forcing another smile. "Well, thank goodness you got some sleep, honey."

The implication of course, being that her parents had fought all night. Her parents, who were usually so bound up in being lovey-dovey with each other, they sometimes forgot she existed. A little lurch of dread took seed in her belly, gnawing at her new appetite, and making it vanish. "I slept like the dead." She assured the woman, with an odd twist on the truth.

"Well, the dead didn't get much sleep around here last night, that's for sure." Adam muttered to himself, the closest she'd ever seen the man to actually coming out and complaining about anything. In the next breath though, before she could question it, he was lifting the paper in his wife's direction, with a question of his own. "How do you think that chair would look in the living room, Barb? Our rocker's pretty much beyond repair, these days…"

Barbara, without another word on the argument that Lydia's parents seemed to be having, put down what she was doing, and walked over to take a look at the picture herself. Just like nothing was wrong. "Oh Adam, I don't think that would match the furniture at all…"

Lydia, looking back and forth between the two, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with her little world lately, lifted her fork, and tapped her cup of coffee, hard, like a child demanding attention. Both Maitlands looked up at her, surprised. "Is, no one, going to tell me what's going on between those two?" Lydia asked pointedly, gesturing helplessly towards the other room.

For just an instant, the two ghosts looked hopelessly guilty, as if whatever was wrong with her parents, was actually all their fault. "Oh…" Barbara murmured, clearly distraught, clasping her hands together unhappily. "Oh, I'm sorry Lydia, it's all our fault…!"

"Now, that's not true, Barbara." Adam interrupted, before the living girl could, giving his wife an even stare. "We can't help what we are, any more than he can. This is just… something we're going to have to work through." He cleared his throat, tapped on the table lightly, in an unconscious 'knock on wood' manner, and turned away again, doing his best to look like he believed his own words. "We'll get through this, just fine. You'll see."

Lydia wasn't buying it, and from the expression on Barbara's face, neither was she. We can't help being what we are… Which meant that this was about her father. And them being ghosts. And her stupid, short-sighted death-phobic father. And surprisingly, even considering their lifelong friendship, her mother was taking the Maitlands' side in this little fiasco, over his. She wondered if that was going to make things better for everyone, or worse.

Lydia bit her thumb, considering the two, now silent, no longer trying to play like everything was fine. Well, hell. Just wait until her dad found out about Beetlejuice and Vincent. And well, everything. "Idiot." She muttered under her breath, making no effort to pretend she might be referring to anyone else.

"Now Lydia, that's no way to talk about your father-" Adam was saying, only to be cut off as Lydia rose to her feet, ignoring her plate, and stormed from the kitchen without another word. Worried, he exchanged a glance with his wife, and quickly followed. This was Lydia after all. There was no telling what she was about to do.

Her parents fell silent again as Lydia walked right up to them, looking from one to the other, fury burning in her gaze. "Are you two done being stupid yet?" She hissed, showing an open disrespect and defiance of her parents that shocked everyone there into silence. "Do you two realize that while you were so busy sniping at each other all night, you didn't even realize I wasn't here?"

Utter, shocked silence greeted her confession… Clearly, none of them knew what to make of this. "Do you know where I spent last night?" She went on, without hesitation, grabbing a leaf stem that had been itching at her scalp, and pulling it free from her hair, holding her prize up for display. "I spent the night in the woods. By myself. I was actually afraid of coming home, and you guys yelling at me for it, but you… You're completely clueless! All because of some stupid shit that hasn't changed since the day I was born!"

There, she was done. She'd gotten it all out. Her chest heaving, her eyes burning, confused and angry, and shocked herself at her own outburst. Damn, and she'd gotten away with it, too. Why the hell had she just done that?

No one was talking. No one said a word.

"Lydia…" Barbara whispered finally, weakly, unsurprisingly the first to break the silence. "No matter what's wrong here, you shouldn't have-"

"You were where?" Her father interrupted coldly, giving her a look that could wilt roses. Lydia just laughed, a little crazily, utterly unimpressed by any threat he might pose. Clearly he had no idea what she was used to dealing with. Coldness quickly gave way to fury, and he took an angry step in her direction… ready to do what, she didn't know…

When her mother, not the pinnacle of emotional stability at the best of time, wilted right there in front of everyone, falling to her knees, and started sobbing. Just utterly wrenching tears and gulps of air, with no attempt at speech, leaving everyone there surprised and speechless for a second time. And for a second time, it was Barb who crossed the distance between them, falling at Olivia's side, and taking the younger woman in her arms, comfortingly. "Oh, Liv…"

Leaving Lydia standing there, heart pounding, mind refusing to make any sense at all. But she only stood there for a few seconds, before a second impulse gripped her, this time to get the hell away from all of them. Grinning a little madly, mostly because she didn't feel like smiling at all, she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, and with a decisive stride, left both her sets of parents there, without another word.

Taking the stairs two at a time, she yanked the door to her room open, slammed it shut behind her, and grabbed the black lipstick off her dresser, all without stopping. Not even giving herself a chance to give it a second thought, she wrote in big black letters, on the inside of her door, 'STAY OUT.'

Then, hiccupping, but not crying, she grabbed her dresser, and with force of will more than strength, dragged it across the heavily carpeted floor, and barricaded herself in her room. She didn't know if the sign would do anything to keep the Maitlands out, it seemed like a pretty dumb idea already, but at least her mom and dad would leave her the hell alone.

At last, completely isolated, she too fell to the floor, shaking, angry, confused. She wanted to call Beetlejuice, but she could only do that if she was in danger… and tracking him down herself would mean leaving her room. Her second impulse was to find Vincent, to just sob out her story, certain he wouldn't think any less of her, and let his strong arms hold her until she stopped shaking…

And then she dismissed that idea too, less consciously, as something soft brushed against her fingertips, drawing her from her misery long enough to recognize the standoffish black and white cat she'd rescued nearly four years before. An animal that usually only paid her any attention when she had something it wanted. Currently staring at her with what felt like very familiar green eyes.

With a groan, and no regard to the risk she was taking if Loki didn't feel like being held, she swept the enormous fur-ball into her arms, and buried her face in his back, breathing deeply of his warm animal smell. It was so simple. So uncomplicated. And then, to her further confusion, for the first time she could remember, the huge cat began to purr.

And then she just held him, and pointedly didn't care about anything for a while.

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A soft, musical tinking tried repeatedly to rouse her from her grief exhausted sleep, but stubbornly Lydia pushed back at her threatening consciousness, retreating ever deeper into a place where things just couldn't hurt her. And that was all it was for a while, that darkness, and the soft demand for her attention, like glass bells.

Gradually though, she became aware of another sound, heavier, wooden. Someone at her door. She tried to ignore this too, but these demands were less polite, more persistent… loud. She lifted her head from the rough carpet, and blinked, her eyes crusty from tears, the imprint of the shaggy yarn pressed into her cheek. She rubbed at the spot, more annoyed by this than her blurred vision, and frowned, looking up at her own 'KEEP OUT' sign.

"Lydia? Lydia Deetz, open this door right now!" Adam. Trying to sound in control. When clearly he couldn't even walked through her wall, despite being a ghost. She felt an odd little stab of satisfaction, that her makeshift 'spell' had worked. "Lydia? Lydia…" His tone dropped, becoming just a trace more desperate. "Please, let us in. We need to talk."

"No." Lydia rasped, not even trying to pretend she was doing what she was supposed to any more, hugging Loki tightly to her chest, until he growled, and kissing his tasseled black ears. "Go away. Leave me alone, or I swear I'll leave again."

Silence fell between them, the man on the other side of the door suddenly very aware that the girl wasn't bluffing, and very aware of just how little control any of them had over her anymore, if she didn't want it. It had to be the worst, most helpless feeling in the world, for any parent… And her gut churned over it, even as she told herself stubbornly that she didn't care.

And then, quietly, defeated, Barb murmured, "Please don't leave, Lydia. If you need some time alone, we'll respect that. Just please don't run away from us." It was so completely wrong. Barb, begging her to stay, when there was nowhere else in the world she belonged more, than here, with them.

But there it was, followed by the sound of the two of them moving away. There was no sign at all of her parents. She was left alone.

Just like she'd wanted.

She squeezed Loki again, and again he growled, angry for her, when she felt like she was just too far past feeling anything, to be angry anymore. And she kissed his tasseled ear again, even though she knew, by the rapid twitching of his tail, that he'd turn on her at any moment, any attempts at comfort, for whatever reason they'd been offered, forgotten.

And then, again, the soft musical 'tinking' sound, coming from behind her. She tried to stand, the large tomcat still in her arms, but this last insult proved to be too much for him, and without a sound he struck out at her, claws bared. Hissing in surprise and pain, she dropped him, rather ungracefully, only for the cat to bolt the moment his feet touched the floor, vanishing under her bed. Two green eyes, glaring out angrily at the world at large, and her in particular.

Puzzled, and relieved by the chance to deal with something as simple as a scratched hand, Lydia put the joint between thumb and index finger against her lips, tasting a faint coppery hint as the tiny drops of blood swelled against her tongue. Then the sound repeated itself again, and this time, realizing where it was coming from, Lydia turned to her mirror. "Vincent?"

"My Lydia?" Something like fear touched the prince's voice, as he gazed at her from the other side of the glass, not waiting this time for permission before he peered in at her. "You were so still, I feared… And then you rose, but your words with your parents…" He looked baffled, and angry, and overall, like he just wanted to fix whatever was happening, so she wouldn't have to be upset anymore. "Lydia, what is going on?"

There were so many answers to that question… Lydia bit the flap of skin between her teeth now, before drawing her hand away, and giving the prince a look that she was certain she'd hate herself for, if she could see it. She was not a girl who played damsel in distress… But that had to be what she looked like, just then. And faced with the opportunity to spill all her problem on her own personal prince charming's shoulder… She realized that this was actually the last thing she wanted to do.

"My parents are fighting." She whispered, her voice oddly bereft of emotion. "I think I made things worse… I don't want to talk about it. I just want to get out of here for a while." Running away, just as Barb had begged her not to do…

Vincent extended his hand though, through the glass, with a shimmering like crystal water. Offering a way out. "Lydia… Come with me. I'll see that we're not disturbed."

For one instant, she thought about refusing. One instant of realizing she actually gave a damn about the family beyond that door, regardless of how badly things seemed to be going. A sense of reason, that said she should go out there, talk to them, try to figure this out… Just as Adam had said.

But one instant was all she gave such brave thoughts, and then she smiled, miserably, and started to take Vincent's hand…

Only to freeze, her fingers a breath from his, her eyes widening briefly as she remembered something. "My poncho…" She murmured, even though this wasn't what she'd been thinking of at all. "The neitherworld is too cold for me without it."

The prince frowned, just a little, concealing what seemed to be a deeper concern behind his eyes, as he murmured encouragingly, "There are a number of far finer coats I could have for you, at my call, dear Lydia. That ragged thing doesn't suit you now… If it ever did."

She just looked at him, puzzled. Not certain herself why she wanted to wear it now, when she'd looked at it with such disdain only a week before. But, it was a gift from Beej… She thought, the edges of her eyes softening, as she unconsciously reached for a ring that wasn't there. It even smells like him a little. If I'm wearing it, it'll be like I have both of them with me.

"I like it." Was all she said, softly. A silly little statement, when he knew full well how dismissively she'd treated the thing in the past. But Vincent, being the man that he was, didn't protest, just nodding. Lydia left him there without another word, walking to the desk he'd given her, and pulling out the secret drawer that she stored all of her most precious treasures in. The poncho of course, right on top.

Pulling it out, she shook it, once, to straighten the wrinkles, and pulled it over her head smoothly… Not yet turning away from the drawer Instead, she crouched lower, and stuck her arm all the way into the bottom, beneath all her other little odds and ends, until her fingers closed on the cool, smooth circlet she'd hidden away.

It felt right, the ratted length of cotton falling around her neck again, even as she tucked the ring away safely beneath her clothes, hidden from prying eyes. Maybe it shouldn't be a lie. Maybe she should get a chain for it. But she'd still keep that first shoelace tucked safely away in her drawer…

I just need to know I'm not alone, she thought to herself, sliding the drawer closed again, wondering why she felt the need to rationalize her desire to wear something that had been part of her for so long… Then letting the worry go.

She walked back to her mirror, and looked at the man waiting for her on the other side… Eyes gentle, concerned. Mouth softened tenderly, as he reached his hand for her again. He was exactly what she needed just then. The neitherworld was exactly what she needed just then. And if she was being selfish…? Well, everyone else in her life was being selfish today, why not her too?

Her mind made up, Lydia took the prince's hand, felt a gentle tug at her wrist, and vanished.

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