Bug Princess and the Seven Months

A Beetlejuice fanfic by Lady Norbert

Author's Note: All right, let's get this out of the way first - no, I absolutely did not in any way, shape, or form intend for there to be a three-year gap between chapters. But there were a number of complications happening in those three years, and while I was able to continue working on my Dragon Age stories on AO3 (mostly because I have a lot of help there), this story was harder because I misplaced some of my notes and, it must be admitted, kind of lost touch with a number of people in the fandom.

So what happened? Well, I was randomly inspired to binge-read the whole series, because it had been so long that I honestly had forgotten a lot of my own plot points. This was refreshing, because I could read the whole thing with almost new eyes and see for myself just how utterly insane it is. I'm quite proud of it, in fact. And apparently that was enough to get a certain poltergeist's attention, and he's back. Hopefully he stays long enough for us to get to the finish line.

I won't promise that this will be finished quickly, but it will be finished. I'm going to do my best. However, because I misplaced some of my notes, it may not be exactly what I originally planned, so if you were one of the people who discussed the plot with me back in the day and you remember anything I might have forgotten, feel free to shoot me a DM. As a sort of apology, enjoy some self-deprecating humor in this chapter.

Chapter Five: There's Dirty Work Afoot

The phone did not often ring in Lady Delphine's house. It was much more common for someone in need of her assistance to show up in person; phone calls were few and far between, and were usually someone trying to reach her about her car's extended warranty. The fact that she hadn't owned a car in twenty years didn't seem to matter.

So when the ringing interrupted what was otherwise a fairly quiet afternoon, it was more of an annoyance than anything. "Hugo," she said, "be a dear and get rid of whoever that is."

The young man who more or less considered himself her son nodded, and moved to pick up the receiver. "Lady Delphine's residence."

"Hugo? It's BJ."

Hugo blinked for a moment. "Wh- BJ? Zounds, man, it feels like it's been years since we last spoke! How in the world have you been?"

"Until about fifteen minutes ago I'd have said great." There was a huff of desperation in his voice. "Is the lady of the house available? We've got ninety-nine problems but a witch ain't one."

"Er - I'm pretty sure that for you, she's available." Hugo tried not to sound amused at BJ's choice of words; trust the tethered poltergeist to make a joke even when he was in trouble. "Lady? It's our old pal BJ."

"Ah, so that's what I saw in the cards this morning," she replied, wiping her hands on a towel. "I'll admit it didn't make much sense at the time." She came to take the phone. "Hello, boy, it's been a while."

She paused, listening intently to whatever he was saying. Her expression was inscrutable. "Did you try - you did? And it didn't work?" Her eyes narrowed. "That's not a good sign. Who else knows about any of this?" She paused. "All right. You had better get in touch with the Godfather. Keep her comfortable. Call me back after you've talked to him. Try not to fret, child, we'll make it right." A moment later she ended the call, and her countenance was grave.

"What's wrong?" Hugo asked. "Is it Lydia? The baby?"

"Yes, and possibly also yes." She immediately started bustling around the house, opening and closing cabinets. "Something's gone pear-shaped and Lydia's fallen into a strange sleep. They can't wake her no matter what they try. Thinks it might have something to do with the apple she was eating."

"Did he…"

"Kiss the princess?" She nodded. "BJ's no fool on that score, at least - he said it was the first thing he tried. But if that didn't work, then something is very wrong and no mistake."

"How could that not have worked?" he wondered. "It's saved them twice already, maybe even more than that for all we know."

"I'll need to look through some of my books. I do have an idea or two, but nothing I'm ready to suggest to him yet - I want more details first." She was creating a pile of reading material to consult. "I told him to get in touch with the Godfather before anything else."

"You're still never going to explain to me who that is, are you?"

"I've told you as much as you need to know about him, and at this point, further exposition is only going to make the audience think we don't trust their memories."

He chuckled. "In fairness, it has been a while."

She paused thoughtfully. "You're not wrong," she acknowledged.

"Besides, do you really think we're on that show? You know, the one they described when they were here. That weird guy with four faces who keeps randomly putting them on television on the other side of the Veil."

"My dear boy, if there's one thing I know, it's that you can never underestimate corporate executives who think they can make a buck off of someone else's plight." She closed one final cabinet. "And if there's one other thing I know, it's that the fourth wall does not protect you, me, or anyone else. BJ himself is pretty certain that the plot is up to something, and he doesn't trust the hack writer as far as he can throw them."

"All things considered," Hugo mused, "he probably has a pretty good point there. Is there anything I can do to help, Lady?"

"Did you ever end up making a Tumblr account?"

"I did, but it seems like a lot of accounts have gone dormant or at least very quiet. Even Prince Vince doesn't update as much as he formerly did. I wonder if he ever did get into self-publishing his poetry…"

"Well, on the off chance that the plot has posted something, suppose you go take a look at the site and see if you can find any potential clues."

If the plot had posted any clues, Hugo conceded some while later, then he clearly was not following the plot and it wasn't showing up as a recommended blog on his feed. Of course, not following the plot wasn't entirely out of the ordinary for a secondary character like himself, and he indulged in roughly two minutes of contemplation about how weird it was to know that he was just a member of someone else's supporting cast. On the other hand, given what the plot had put his friends through on multiple occasions, there was something to be said for not being its preferred target.

Deciding that he'd put enough of a mural on the fourth wall for the time being, he shut down his laptop and went to report his lack of findings to Lady Delphine. "I don't think Tumblr has anything on it that could be of any use to us," he said. "Have you heard back from BJ? Is there any news?"

"Nothing yet, which I imagine means that there's been no change in Lydia's condition. He'd at least be thoughtful enough to update us immediately if she improved, and if she got worse and he was too overwrought to think of it, I'd have heard from the Godfather instead." Delphine shook her head. "I've gone through every single book I can think to consult about this, and there's nothing that has any suggestions."

"She was eating an apple and passed out," said Hugo. "So… kind of like Snow White?"

"Exactly like Snow White, minus the seven short people and also minus the kiss serving as an antidote." Delphine drummed her fingers on the table. "That's the part that doesn't fit. If the intent here was to toss these two into a fairy tale, then by rights the kiss should counteract whatever spell is in place on that apple. Even the plot isn't supposed to be able to stand up to something like that."

"I thought the plot was more powerful even than traditions."

"Honestly, it depends on the writer." She shook her head. "I'll level with you, dear child. I'm frankly at a loss."

"Well…" Hugo sat down, a little perplexed. He'd never seen his beloved teacher-mother look so stumped, nor so troubled. "Maybe we should just go over the facts and see if anything jumps out at us. I mean, it can't hurt."

"This isn't like one of those puzzle games you play on your computer, but you're not wrong - it can't do any harm." She reiterated the situation as BJ had explained it to her. His brother Donny had come to spend some time at the farm with him and Lydia; he had brought her an apple as a sort of hostess gift, because apples were Lydia's chief craving during pregnancy; Lydia had swallowed all of one bite of the apple before declaring she felt unwell and falling into a dead faint; she had remained unconscious ever since.

"He said she's showing no signs of illness - no fever, no evident chills, no bruising or splotching or anything of that sort," she added. "He hasn't brought in a physician, for obvious reasons, but as far as he can tell she's just very deeply asleep and will not wake."

"So was it the apple, or was that just a bit of bad timing?"

"That, my boy, is the part that I can't determine at a distance." She lifted her head a little. "I'll need to go and be on the scene."

"You? Leave New Orleans?"

"We," she corrected. "I don't like to leave the Crescent City any more than you do, but I may need your help. BJ's likely too distraught to be of much use - you saw how he was during the Erebos episode. This might be worse, in its way, because even though she's physically present she's effectively out of reach. I'll likely be relying on you to assist me with what I need to do."

"Will the city be safe, do you think?" he wondered.

"We'll set up some wards and things. Sooner or later she needs to learn to get along without me, I've got my own standing appointment on the other side of the Veil. I certainly don't aim to spend my afterlife haunting the city the way I did in life." She half-smiled. "Might take me the whole afterlife to beat the Godfather at Monopoly, after all."

Late the following morning, a taxi brought Lady Delphine and Hugo out to the somewhat isolated farmhouse. She pushed back the hood of her blue cape as she exited the vehicle, looking around thoughtfully, and after Hugo had paid the driver, he watched as she threaded her way across the lawn to the front door. This, then, was the property which BJ had given Lydia on the occasion of their mortal marriage. Hugo found himself thinking that even if he'd been brought to the grounds blindfolded, he would have known that - the very earth beneath their feet seemed to hum with their mingled energies.

Delphine's silver hair rippled in the midsummer breeze, and if her expression was any indication, she could almost smell the fear which was wrapping itself around the house. Maybe he was imagining it, but he had his doubts on that score.

She rang the bell, which resulted in a sound not entirely unlike discordant piano keys crashing, and a moment later the door opened to reveal a face which was only somewhat unfamiliar to them. He had pale hair and blue eyes, but he wasn't quite BJ. "You must be the brother," she said. "Donny, was it?"

"Uh - yes, ma'am," came the mystified reply. After a pause, however, the young man's expression cleared. "Oh! Oh, you must be Lady Delphine! Lydia told me all about you - it's an honor, ma'am, do please come in. Thank you so kindly for traveling all this way and going to such trouble for my poor brother and sister."

"Thank you." She stepped across the threshold and looked around approvingly. "If I had drawn a picture of what I imagined their home looked like, this would be it. I can sense how happy they are here most of the time."

"Oh, yes, ma'am, happy as clams. Two peas in a pod." Donny glanced at the still-open door. "And you must be Hugo! Come in, come in."

"We'll worry about pleasantries later," said Lady Delphine, not unkindly. "Tell me, lad, where is Lydia now?"

"Brother's moved her up to their room. He thought she might be more comfortable on the bed. I can show you the way - he'll be so relieved that you've come."

They followed him up the stairs, and as they reached the second floor they could hear BJ's voice. The words were pitched too low to discern what he was saying, but it wasn't hard to guess that he was speaking to Lydia and hoping to rouse her. "Brother!" Donny called. "The cavalry has arrived, as you might say."

"You might say that." BJ sounded halfway amused, however, which Hugo couldn't help thinking was a bit encouraging. He came out into the hallway. "Hey, kid. Nice to see you, Lady. Well, it would be nice if this hadn't happened, anyway."

"You're looking well, BJ, apart from the obvious. I take it that apart from all this, you've both been in good health?"

"I'm the healthiest dead guy I know," he replied. "And Lyds has been doing really well with all the pregnancy stuff. Thought we'd got through the worst of it, now that she's not doing the morning sickness thing anymore." He frowned deeply. "I just don't understand why the kiss didn't work."

"Neither do I, but we'll figure it out. Donny," she said, turning to address him, "go please and get me whatever's left of the apple that Lydia didn't eat. I'll want to examine it. Meanwhile, BJ, may I see her?"

He nodded back over his shoulder. "In there. Hasn't made a peep since this happened."

While Hugo lingered near the door, shaking hands with BJ (mostly because he didn't know what else to do), Delphine made her way to the side of the bed and studied the pale, motionless figure lying there. Lydia's unbound hair was spread over the pillow; her arms were loosely folded over the swell of her abdomen. If not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, she could easily be mistaken for having succumbed to tragedy. But there was no hallmark of illness on her, just as BJ had reported. Indeed, to judge strictly by appearances, she was perfectly healthy - just unconscious.

Without even turning around, Hugo knew the instant Donny entered the room carrying the plate full of apple slices, and he could tell by the way Lady Delphine went very still that she knew it too. Every shadow in the vicinity suddenly lengthened, and darkened, and even as she revolved on the spot she could sense the arrival of the instrument of doom. There had been no mere coincidence of timing to Lydia's plight; the apple was, without question, the cause. Even as the lady turned to look at the fruit, it seemed to glow with a sickly green color for a few seconds before resuming its usual appearance.

"So… someone gave a poisoned apple to our Snow White," she said. "And not even true love's kiss has countered the taint."

"The plot has a sick sense of humor," BJ grumbled.

"What did the Godfather say when you spoke to him?"

"Not much of anything straightforward. You know how he is, he's worse than you that way. He said he'd wait for your opinion before he offered any advice, though."

She looked at the apple again, and picked up one of the pieces to sniff. "All quite normal to the untrained eye," she noted. "I'm a little surprised Lydia didn't sense anything out of the ordinary - it probably didn't occur to her that there could be a problem. You'll want to have the prince look for the fruit seller, of course, but I suspect she'll be long gone."

"I feel awful about this," Donny said ruefully.

"Oh, don't blame yourself, lad. You were nothing worse than an unwitting pawn. The question which needs asking is who on the other side of the Veil would want to harm Lydia, and why."

"That's what doesn't make sense more than anything else," said BJ. "Everyone in the Neitherworld loves Lyds - they built a statue to her and everything. They might hate me, but they wouldn't hurt her over it. Heck, if they were going to do that, they'd have done it a long time ago."

"Unless they didn't know her a long time ago," said Donny, slowly. "We did just meet some new people at the prince's ball, remember?"

"That sounds like a plot point."

While the brothers bantered in this fashion, Delphine was examining the apple with the help of a pendulum and a ritual knife. "No ordinary poison," she said after a few minutes. "In fact, I'm not sure poison is the right word. This is more like a spell, an extremely specifically targeted spell. Unless I'm very mistaken, if anyone besides Lydia had eaten this apple, they would have suffered no ill effects at all. Whoever did this was bent on harming her and her alone."

"Which means whoever did this is going to get bent into a pretzel whenever I find them," BJ growled. "I'll tear the Neitherworld apart piece by piece if that's what it takes to track them down."

Delphine paused. "Hold that thought, BJ, and answer me a question. Do you still have your powers?"

He blinked at her. "Y'know, with all this going on, I didn't think to check. Been too keyed up to worry about transforming and stuff." He hesitated for only a moment, and then a faint popping noise broke the silence as he changed form.

"This is what Brother looks like back home," Donny said helpfully, gesturing at his sibling.

"Interesting. So transitioning from one form to the other isn't beyond your capabilities just now."

"Looks that way," said BJ, or whatever name he used in his usual form. It occurred to Hugo that he didn't know if he had another name, or what it might be if he did. "That's kind of surprising, now that you mention it."

"Yes, it is," she replied. "But do you understand why?"

He paused and scratched his head. "Uh… I feel like I should… but I don't."

"If you can change form, it means that you still have your powers - which means that Lydia doesn't," she explained. "When she fell victim to Hugo's botched ritual, she survived because your magic transferred itself to her, leaving you powerless."

"Oh, yeah!" His eyes widened somewhat. "I remember that. But then once we knew she was in the Neitherworld, I stopped worrying because that meant she was safe and so was my juice."

"Just so. But if she doesn't have your powers now, then they're not what kept her from being destroyed by this spell." She gave him a meaningful, almost searching look. "Are you following me yet?"

BJ's brows knitted together - literally, Hugo realized, as he could just make out a pair of tiny knitting needles darting back and forth across the poltergeist's forehead. Apparently much of BJ's power was centered around terrible jokes and visual puns. "You're telling me my wife should be dead - I mean, all the way dead, not just a little bit like she usually is - but instead she's asleep. So how did that happen?"

"It happened because the enchantment on the apple is not as strong as what protected Lydia. I thought it was your own powers, but it's clear now that this is not the case at all." She looked thoughtful. "It's possible that if it had been your powers, none of this would have happened, but something intervened faster than you yourself could since you weren't here at the time. The intervention wasn't quite as powerful as you, but it was close."

"It wasn't me," said Donny, who looked like he didn't have the faintest idea of what was going on and was quite possibly veering close to actually fainting. "I've got powers in bits, like most people in the Neitherworld, but nothing like Brother's got. He's one of a kind!"

"One of… of course." Lady Delphine slapped her forehead. "I'm a blind old fool for not seeing it sooner. That's just it."

"What's it?" Hugo finally ventured to speak.

"BJ's not one of a kind anymore." She turned to look at Lydia's sleeping figure. "He couldn't protect her because he wasn't here… so the baby did. That child's powers must have activated in the womb to defend his mother. BJ, if your baby can do that before having even been born, he's likely to become even more powerful than you when he grows up."

"Ha!" BJ looked smug. "That's my boy! Way to go, Buggy, good job." Then he deflated. "Still doesn't tell us who did this or how to fix it, though."

"No, but it's a starting point. The only way to undo the enchantment on Lydia is to find out what the end goal of it was." She was thinking hard. "BJ, can you charm Lydia's parents?"

"Been doing that for years."

She chuckled. "Not what I mean, boy. Can you make them forget about any of this for a little while? Put the idea in their heads that Lydia is fine and they shouldn't worry but they also shouldn't expect to see her for a time?"

"Now you're just insulting me." He sort of smiled, however. "You think I can't pull off something that simple? I'll get it in their brains that I took Lyds down to Florida for some sun. Doc's orders or whatever. Don't worry, Chuck and Delia aren't the brightest bulbs on their best day."

"Good. Once you do that, I think the best thing we can do is take her to the Neitherworld, as you call it. We're going to need all hands on deck for this particular case."

BJ's response was to snap his fingers, and they all found themselves suddenly dressed like pirates. Hugo never expected to see Lady Delphine sporting an eye patch, but there it was.

"Aye aye, captain," the poltergeist barked. "Full speed ahead, ye landlubbers! Donny, start swabbin'!"