A/N: Hey you faithful friends and followers whom I love dearly! Guess what I have!? That's right…AN UPDATE! Now its not as fantastically smutty as I thought it would be because (a) I had 8 pages without the smut and (b) I just don't have it in me. Between teething, ear infections, endless viral crap circulating in not only the daycare I run but in my daughter's as well, sleepless nights and nowhere NEAR enough coffee in this entire world…I just didn't have it in me. So I hope you can all forgive me and let a bit of fluff riddled ficcage appease your Beej and Lydia hunger. Thanks to everyone who updated and holy HANNAH helped me get over 200 reviews! You are all amazing!

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Beetlejuice and make no profit from the writing of this fic.

Chapter 21: Forever

For some reason, Lydia assumed her sense of self would return automatically the second Beetlejuice's spirit vacated her body. That wasn't how it happened at all however. The process was slow, each sense taking its moment and returning at a crawling pace to become hers once more. She kept her eyes closed and took pleasure in the lethargic return to self. The smell of smoke and cold night at war with one another trickled through, followed by the bite of the cold air against her skin. The whisper of the midnight air through the boughs of the surrounding evergreens and naked branches of various elm, oak and maple, the slight weight of her clothing over her limbs, the bitter aftertaste of the beer Beetlejuice had consumed prior to his terrorizing…every little piece, bit by it until there was nothing left to do but open her eyes.

Once she did and her vision became more focused, she was only mildly surprised that the landscape remained pristine – the snow still a soft powdery blanket marred only by footprints. Beetlejuice may have been many things, but he seemed to be almost a perfectionist in his haunting, leaving no trace behind that would hint at a paranormal experience.

Lydia made a move to turn towards the house when the fine hairs at the nape of her neck started to prickle annoyingly and a chill chased over her spine. Eyes narrowing, she scanned the surroundings. There was nothing to be seen and yet the sense of being watched remained. That creepy, skin tingling sensation that some boogeyman still lingered in the shadows of the evening, undeterred by the wrath of a protective poltergeist was persistent. Even rolling her shoulders and scolding her imagination did nothing to stop it.

Part of her wanted to shout out a reminder that they had been warned to stay away but her sense of reason told her that it would be pointless. After what Beetlejuice had done, there was no way any of them would return to finish what they had started. Not unless they were some kind of sadist that enjoyed pain on a level that was beyond sickening. That voice of reason also reminded her that Beetlejuice wasn't the only dead entity in Winter River. There was Juno. There was Rebecca. Each could have played the role of spectator this evening, overseeing the events and keeping far out of it but not far enough that they couldn't intervene if need be.

Shrug it off, Deetz.

That was exactly what she did after angling a glare at the slopping hillside. It may have been her wayward imagination but adding a little finality to the threat Beetlejuice had left them with certainly couldn't hurt. And telling herself that it was the winter wind that chased her into the warmth of her home and not that feeling of being watched couldn't hurt either.

Lydia nearly slammed the door behind her, then stared at it for a handful of seconds before reaching out to flip the deadbolt which she couldn't help but feel ridiculous for. She lived with a ghost. What reason did she have for being paranoid?

Speaking of which-.

She spun, expecting to see Beetlejuice or at least his body behind her but there was nothing.

"Beetlejuice?"

The silence that answered stirred a spark of worry. They'd stopped the exorcism…so where was he?
"Beej?"

"Here babes".

She sighed as cold, invisible limbs wrapped securely around her.

"Just need some time to get back to me. Those assholes kinda wiped me out".

Like coming down from an adrenaline high, a horrible sense of urgency overtook her. She needed to see him, to hold him, to know he was still here. She'd almost lost him. Without him she'd be-.

Be what?

The answer to that question frightened her more than any corporeal being possibly could, more than any spectral being ever could.

I would be alone…

"Hurry, Beej," she managed to breath, wrapping her arms around herself as she felt the cold start to slide away, panic quickly taking its place.

She didn't know if it was the fact that he'd had enough time or that her words had held enough power to bring him back but there he was, standing before her, eyes burning hot and telling her everything he couldn't. Everything she wanted to say herself but the words wouldn't come. Every almost that wasn't.

He shifted and with a nearly inaudible sound she went to him. He pulled her in, hands clutching, nails biting into her skin. Every sensation was welcome, the mix of pleasure and pain proof that he was there – that she hadn't lost him.

When he kissed her, his lips possessive and bruising, she could taste life. Strange…but that's what she could taste. She wound her arms around his neck, clinging to him and never once questioning why death could taste so alive. She couldn't think past wanting more, craving him in some fixated way that terrified and excited her at the same time. It was dizzying - so dizzying that she started to feel herself weaken, her limbs turning heavy and her mind suddenly sluggish.

Her brown knit in confusion and she started to pull away when she suddenly realized why. He was draining her – feeding off of her to restore his power. Like a vampire drawing blood from its victim to live, he was feeding off of her life source in order to exist. She should have been offended, should have been horrified. Instead, she felt empowered and incredibly turned on. There was something very erotic about being fed off of; being needed on such an intimate level and knowing that Beetlejuice would never hurt her. He would take what he needed to regain what the near-exorcism had taken from him and no more. And she would let him.

She slid her fingers through his hair, gripping the strands between her fingers as she deepened the kiss with a low moan, letting him know he was free to take as much of her as he needed.

His arms tightened around her, an answering sound of carnal lust vibrating from the back of his throat.

She steeped herself so deeply into him that she could feel every one of his emotions as if it were hers - the surge of greed when he realized that she was onto him, the thread of humility cautiously slipping through the evil poltergeist façade as if it knew it were an intruding, foreign feeling, the blinding lust that threatened to consume them both and finally the satisfaction that drew him back.

"You," he said, framing her face between his hands, "are amazing. Tell me what you want, Babes. I'll get it for ya. A millions dollars, a new house, France."

She laughed. "You'd get me France?"

"I could damn well try."

It was tempting. An entire country - all for her. But she only wanted one thing.

"Just you," she said simply.

His mouth twisted in a contemplative frown. "Well, that ain't much."

Lydia shrugged. "You're all I need. Well, you...and maybe a bed."

"Easy."

He turned her, one arm snaking around her waist while he took her hand in his and held it out in front of them. "Think about it."

She closed her eyes and pictured a bed - a twisting black casket-shaped frame that defied convention with a spider web headboard and posts that spiraled towards the ceiling like frozen tendrils of smoke, a mattress that was made entirely of down, satin sheets of deep blood red and pitch black.

"Shit, you're twisted," Beetlejuice growled close to her ear.

She started to smile but the flood of spectral power suddenly flowing through her caused her lips to part instead. She moaned softly, surrendering herself over to Beetlejuice.

"Open those pretty eyes," he commanded, his lips brushing the flesh just below the curve of her jaw and sending a shiver through her entire body.

The bed was there, bathed in shadows, sinister and entirely inviting. Spinning in his loose embrace, Lydia took Beetlejuice's hands and walked backwards, pulling him with her.

When the back of her thighs touched the footboard, he lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, laughing against his mouth when he made a fumbling attempt to move them both onto the bed and nearly dropped her.

"You're so coordinated," she teased.

"Shut up." And as if to emphasize his command, he kissed her deeply, teeth pulling on her bottom lip and she gladly did so.

With nothing more than a rough brush of his hands down the length of her body, her clothing disappeared. Like the dream she'd had what felt like forever ago, it slipped from her like a silky tide. Unlike that dream however, the clothing manifested in thin straps of satin, sliding around her wrists and securing them to the headboard.

"I didn't really intend to have my creative vision turn against me."

Beetlejuice pushed away and grinned down at her. "No one ever does," he said with a shrug. "And just 'cuz I turned it against ya doesn't mean it isn't gonna work for ya."

And in truth, it already was. Lying prone beneath him, wrists secured above her head, was making the blood course hot and excited through her veins. Granted she usually always played the submissive when it came to him but something about this time was different. Maybe because she had almost lost him. Maybe because she'd tasted the full potential of his power and was eager for more. Whatever it was, it was different and she wasn't going to waste time analyzing reasons why when she could be kissing him.

She wound her legs low around his waist and closed them quickly enough to jerk him forward. It was the last non-submissive thing she would be doing for the next several hours.

It shouldn't have been possible for a ghost to feel much of anything physical. When a person's time came, pain was usually the last thing ever felt and after that there was a whole lot of nothing. In Beetlejuice's case, pain had paved the way into the afterlife – the constant burn in the back of his throat, the agonizing scorching that filled his lungs. Even when he'd given up on trying to hold his breath and allowed water to fill his mouth and nose, the chill of it did nothing to ease the feeling of his lungs burning from the inside out. Up until Lydia, it had been the only physical emotion he could remember really feeling. All that other shit – the joy of scaring stupid people, the sexual anxiety, even the hostile anger – it was all a lot of show really, a pretense that he took mild comfort in putting forth to hang onto a shred of the humanity he'd been forced to leave behind.

He could feel now, though and it floored him. It was like being alive again. A euphoric, sated feeling of contentment and exhaustion weighed heavily on him like a thick blanket draped over his shoulders. He stared out the window of the living room, cigarette dangling between his finger tips and eyes surveying the moon-bathed hillside. Though looking over the landscape thoughtfully, his mind was on the raven-haired woman still sleeping. Ever since getting under his goddamned skin the way she had years ago, she'd always made him feel much more excited about facing another day – something that the dead, again, didn't often do. Days bled together when you were dead. But Lydia…damn Lydia…she'd given him this strange gift of knowing what it felt to feel alive again and now more so than before.

Something about last night had changed things. There had been a subtle shift that had changed things drastically. Now…now he wasn't sure he even was dead anymore. And that was a dangerous thing. That was a rule in the big 'ol book of the dead – never question your state of death. Rule number 368, page 1,377. Yes…that's right. That's how screwed up that damn handbook really was. And yet he knew it cover to cover. Being stuck in numerous punishments in vacated houses with no one to haunt had left him with a lot of reading time on his hands. Once dead, you were dead. You didn't question it. You just accepted it for what it was. Questioning your status left you open to a lot of nasty shit he really didn't feel like facing. And yet, he couldn't help it. Lydia made him live.

He looked back to the bed where she lay sprawled over coffin shaped bed, one wrist still tied loosely to the wrought iron headboard. The other lay on her stomach. The tattoo she'd gotten peeked out from between her fingertips. The paleness of her skin stood out in stark contrast with those sheets she'd thought up, the black of her hair mixing with it so well that the only visible trace of the inky strands was where they drifted over her relaxed features like tiny snow drifts over a highway. That feeling of being alive nagged harder than ever as the brief notion of her being the one that was actually a goner flitted through his mind. Something akin to horror, or at least what he thought of as horror, quickly chased it away and what he was left with was a feeling that wasn't entirely unpleasant but wasn't anything near what he'd been happily swimming in before that hideous "dead Lydia" thought has crossed his mind.

He lifted his cigarette to his mouth and inhaled slowly, drawing the smoke into lungs that couldn't breathe. That's right…couldn't. Not anymore. Never will again – because you're the one who's dead. Not her. You Mr. Ghost with the Most, are the dead one here.

But he could still exhale smoke and he did so slowly.

Way to contemplatively smoke a fuckin' cigarette, he thought, wanting to roll his eyes at how entirely stupid he was being but finding it impossible to look away from Lydia and the way her chest rose and fell, slowly with each sleep-labored breath she drew in. Because she's alive. Not dead…alive. Why am I arguing with myself on this shit?

The answer was simple. He was arguing with himself on her status as a breather was because he'd almost died himself…again. And if he died there was no protecting what they had. It would be over, just like that. Snapped in two like it had been nothing more than a wishbone each of them had been holding an end of. If she died…there'd be no protecting it either. There was no way her soul was a tainted, mangled, murdering disaster like his was. She'd move on…he'd stay behind. The way they were now may have worked on some level but in the grand scheme of things with fate being a fickle, nasty bitch, it wouldn't always work. Unless…

Beetlejuice straightened, eyes alight with a fevered, desperate glow. There was a way. He knew the way. He could keep her safe, he could be there with her…maybe not forever…but long enough to make sure they could enjoy what they had until she was whatever ripe-old age she would eventually leave this world at. He could keep her out of the reach of death and he could stay out of the reach of it as well…if he was free.

He put his cigarette out in the palm of his hand and crossed to the bed, sinking down beside Lydia. He brushed her hair out of her face with the tips of his fingers and it was enough to pull her gently from her slumber. A frown pulled her brows together ever so slightly and then her lids fluttered open and those pools of liquid brown stared up at him sleepily.

"Hey," she said, smiling a lazy, Cheshire I-just-got-laid-and-loved-every-minute-of-it smile.

He wasted no time. He didn't have the romantic mindset to waste time on this. "Marry me."

The smile faded, but only slightly. And he could tell she was thinking. It was sluggish because half of her was surely still trying to wake up. He would give her that. There wasn't hesitation because she wasn't sure. She was just as sure as he was, he wouldn't doubt that for a minute.

She moved her hand to take his, the one still secured to the bed and pouted up at it when she couldn't reach any farther than where it had originally rested. Beetlejuice untied the loose knot and tossed the flimsy bit of fabric aside, then twined his fingers through hers.

For a second her eyes narrowed and his certainty wavered.

"Yes."