In Sickness and In Health
by
Owlcroft
Warning: This is an unabashed wallow in sentiment. Proceed at your own risk.
Lydia didn't feel at all well that morning. She was feverish, achy, and had no appetite. She refrained from telling her husband that she had felt fairly awful since the night before and hadn't gotten much sleep.
"If you're really sick, maybe we should get you to a doctor." Beetlejuice fussed around her with cups of tea, aspirin, a hot water bottle (which he must have juiced up since they didn't own one), blankets and pillows, and the utmost solicitude.
Lydia groggily shook her head. "I'm sure I'll feel better by lunchtime. If I don't . . ."
She didn't. Beetlejuice was getting nearly frantic and insisted that she needed medical help, from a human doctor. Once he'd taken them both to the Deetz household, her parents agreed.
"Your Aunt Zipporah had symptoms just like that, you know." Delia felt Lydia's forehead and clicked her tongue. "It turned out to be appendicitis. I don't suppose you have any pain in that area, do you, dear?"
Lydia had been reluctant to mention it before now, especially with her husband already alarmed and upset, but at this point she was forced to admit to it. "It's hurt right here since around three this morning," she muttered, pointing to her lower right abdomen.
Beetlejuice looked panicky for a second or two, then said, "Everybody just hold on!"
Charles and Delia blinked in astonishment as they found themselves in their car, parked in front of the nearest hospital's emergency entrance. Lydia, in the back with her husband, wasn't surprised at all.
"Okay, now we're here, everything is going to be all right," Beetlejuice told his wife tensely, trying hard to smile.
ooooo
Once Lydia had been examined and diagnosed, and surgery on her inflamed appendix was imminent, Beetlejuice started to crack.
Sitting by her bedside, holding her hand, trying to re-assure her and himself, reaction to the crisis set in and he shivered and sniffled and fidgeted and fretted until Charles took him out into the hall.
"She's going to be fine," he told his son-in-law. "This is routine surgery, they do it all the time. Honestly, you don't have to worry about it."
"Oh, yeah?" his son-in-law shot back. "If you think I can do anything except worry, you're nuttier than –" he barely caught himself before he uttered Delia's name and quickly substituted, "– than a pecan pie."
Charles eyed him askance, then sighed. "Okay. Of course you're going to worry. But you don't want to upset Lydia, do you? You have to at least pretend to be calm so she doesn't worry about you."
Nothing else he could have said would have had any effect, but that did. Beetlejuice grimaced ferociously, took four gasping breaths, and shook himself all over, like a dog. Then he marched back into Lydia's room and sat beside her, telling her how everything would be just fine and there was absolutely no reason to worry and that she'd be home again before she knew it and he'd take the best care of her that he could while she got all better.
Lydia thanked her father with a grateful glance and agreed quietly with everything Beetlejuice said until she was taken into surgery.
In the waiting room, Charles and Delia sat across a small coffee table from Beetlejuice, who had put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, fists clenched in his hair. His expression since Lydia had been wheeled out of her room had been one of mixed misery and anxiety, and now he sat stone-still, hunched over, silent. Finally Delia couldn't bear it any longer. She got up and went to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"She'll be fine, dear. Honestly, she'll be just fine. Try not to worry so much." She realized her words were having no effect, so she offered to get him some coffee. When he failed to hear her, she repeated, louder, "Do you want some coffee, BJ?"
"What?" He looked up at her abruptly. "She's . . . my Lyds, she's . . ."
"Going to be all right," Delia told him, pulling a chair over to sit beside him, patting his arm.
"She's . . . everything." Beetlejuice stared at the far wall. "Everything. All I have. All I want. I need her. Don't you understand? She's everything to me. And she's – " he turned his head toward the surgical wing and all that mattered to him. "She's sick and she hurts and I can't help her." He stopped talking, closed his eyes, and folded his arms around himself, slowly rocking back and forth.
Delia conceded defeat and got herself and Charles some coffee.
ooooo
Beetlejuice rocked himself until the surgeon appeared to announce that Lydia was out of surgery and they'd be allowed to visit her in her room soon. He paused then for a few moments while Charles and Delia thanked the doctor with real gratitude and then went to try and cheer up their son-in-law. He shook his head and resumed his rocking until a nurse came to get them and escort them to the patient's room. He gave the nurse one distraught look and took a deep breath; then he followed her, agitatedly weaving his fingers together, to his wife.
Lydia was still asleep and her parents held back to allow Beetlejuice to approach her. He barely remembered to walk and not float, and when beside her, silently took Lydia's hand and kissed it. Then he sat sideways on the edge of the bed and bent over her hand, eyes closed, breathing unevenly.
Charles took Delia's arm and pulled her out to wait with him in the hallway for a while.
When a nurse came to check on their daughter, the Deetzes accompanied her into the room to find Lydia, half-awake at most, smiling drowsily at Beetlejuice, who was now seated in the only chair in the room, pulled up right beside the bed, still holding her hand.
He remained silent, but stood and offered Charles Lydia's hand to hold while he went to stand by the door, face to the wall.
Delia once again came over to him and patted his arm. "She's fine. She's going to be fine," she whispered.
Beetlejuice nodded, then whispered back, "I'm not leaving her. When they kick us out, I'm not leaving her."
"I understand perfectly," Delia told him. "And I know Lydia will appreciate your being here. Just don't get caught," she warned.
He shook his head and then turned back to the bed suddenly as Lydia mumbled his name.
ooooo
It was long past visiting hours and the entire hospital was quiet except for the soft shushing of nurses' shoes in the hallway.
In Room 206, Lydia Deetz-Juice, post-op patient, lay asleep with her husband sitting in the chair next to her bed; he was holding her hand and watching her intently, desperately.
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked her softly. "I can't function without you. Without knowing you're okay, that you're safe and happy. Dearest," he kissed her hand gently, "I can't . . . I need you so much. You know that, right? You know that you are . . ." He sat and breathed for a while, eyes closed, her hand still pressed to his mouth.
Lydia shifted just slightly, sighed a little in her sleep and seemed to hold his hand a little tighter.
"You make existing worthwhile," he murmured against her hand. "You are all that matters, all there is. You're the reason for everything and I can't bear to think of losing you." He paused then, took a few deep breaths, and went on. "I know that when . . . when you . . . you know, when that happens, that you'll come to the Neitherworld and we'll be together forever. But dearest, heart of my heart, you have this life to live, in this world, something I never had. You need to live this life and be happy and do the things you want to do and I want to help you do those things and make sure you're happy. My only one, how can I help you, make you happy, keep you safe, if things like this can happen?"
A nurse opened the door to Room 206 and entered to check his patient. When he'd finished and exited, Beetlejuice made himself visible again, never having let go of his wife's hand.
"Lydia," he breathed, "Lydia, dearest, sweeting, heart's joy, tell me what to do. Tell me how to . . ." He pressed his face against her hand again, gently. "It hurts so much," he murmured, "to be that scared, that worried. And I didn't keep you safe; I couldn't help you. It all hurts so much. I can't do this again. Please, my dear one, don't ever, ever do this to me again." He realized a few unconscious tears had seeped onto his wife's hand and he carefully blotted them with his necktie then kissed where they'd been.
He tried to collect himself then, tried to realize she would indeed recover and things would be as they had been, but the fear only receded; he couldn't chase it away entirely.
"I'm yours," he told her so softly, "and you're mine. You have all my heart, all my devotion, all my feelings for you in your hands. And I can't even begin to tell you all this when you're awake. Why? Why can't I tell you? I need for you to know this, to know what I feel, what you've made me feel." He touched her sleeping face with his free hand, ran it gently down her cheek. "Every beat of my heart is for you, every thought of my mind is for you, every breath I take is for you. Beautiful, precious, heart's treasure, I need you more than you will ever understand." He sniffed, then realized his eyes were damp again and his efforts to get control of himself were failing.
"Oh, Lyds," he wiped at his eyes and sniffed again, "you wouldn't laugh, would you, if you woke up and found me like this? You'd smile at me and take me in your arms and tell me things will be all right and kiss me. Please wake up and smile at me and take me in your arms and tell me things will be all right and kiss me."
"Beej," said Lydia weakly. And opened her eyes half-way and smiled at him. "If you're here . . . then everything's all right."
And he took in one gasping breath, then put his head down on her arm and she put her other hand on his hair, and his silence and the dampness she felt on her arm told her of his desperation and helplessness and all-consuming need.
When the last night nurse made her visit, she found the patient cradled in her husband's arms. Somehow, he had cuddled around her on the bed, on her left side, and the patient's head was resting peacefully on his shoulder and she was holding his hand in a tight grip. Even as they slept, there were faint marks of distress and anxiety on one face and a faint smile on the other.
The nurse shook her head and made a radical decision. There were only two months left until her retirement and, for once, the regulations could go hang. She checked Lydia's vital signs and IV drips and left the room quietly.
ooooo
Beetlejuice had been cossetting his wife since her release from the hospital. Finally, after two days, she told him he had to stop. "I have to start doing things for myself, you know," she told him.
"Hey, I let you brush your own teeth this morning!" he said in protest.
She tried not to laugh too hard because it still pulled a little where the small healing incision was. "And I appreciated it. But really, I can walk around and pour my own coffee and –"
"And you can let me do things for you, too. Dearest," he picked her up gently, with the utmost care, and then sat on the couch with her in his lap, "please?"
"Some things, maybe. Maybe." She snuggled just a bit closer. "You know, in the hospital that first night, it was really strange. I was asleep but not really, if that makes any sense. Must have been the anesthesia still wearing off. But I could swear I heard you talking to me; I knew you were there with me, and you were telling me –" She looked up at him, then kissed him. "I don't remember all the words, my sweet darling, but you were telling me you love me."
He shrugged one shoulder very gently. "I might have said something . . . Maybe I . . ." He stopped talking and kissed her hair, sighing. "If I could remember all I said, I'd say it again right now. But I can't. I was so worried and so upset . . . and I was so scared. Please don't ever . . ."
"I never will." She ran a caressing hand over his face. "You are mine and I am yours, and I have all that you are in my hands. I love you and need you just as much as you love and need me, my dear, sweet, darling Beetlejuice. And everything is all right."
