Souls That Need Each Other Chapter 3: With the Morning Comes Laughter By: Kichara

*~*~*~*~*

POKE. "Psst." POKE. "Psst."

Beetlejuice groaned, one hand reaching up to cover his eyes. 'When the hell had the alarm clock gotten so tricky?' His hand bumped into something, a warm body next to him and he opened his eyes, one squinting. 'Wait a minute." He looked down to see a pair of large emerald eyes, glittering in the morning light.

"You take a long time to wait up." Nicky announced with a grin, poking him again.

He groaned closing his eyes again and grabbing the pillow and dumping it on his head, holding it there securely. She poked him again, this time in the ribs. "Quit it." He groaned, scooting away from her hand.

She sat up, taking this into consideration, and experimentally poked him in the ribs again. He whined and scooted away more. Another poke, more squirming and a groan of protest. Her face lit up in a huge grin and she leaned over, talking directly to the pillow, a sly tone to her voice. "Are you. ticklish?" That was the only warning he got before she glomped him, tickling his sides mercilessly.

The ghost yelped, tossing the pillow across the room and squirmed, trying valiantly to get away from the little girl's merciless fingers as he let out a howl of laughter, which was joined by a burst of giggles from his attacker. It took a second for some semblance of coherency kicked in, and he decided to fight fire with fire, fighting against the urge to curl up into a defensive ball and reached out, fingers finding her tiny torso and tickling her sides. Her giggles rose to shrieks of laughter and she thrashed around, trying to escape him and inflect her own amount of tickling at the same time, while he tried the same.

He rolled over, forgetting they were still in his rather narrow bed, and fell to the floor with her collapsing on top of him. The shock of falling made the both of them stop, lying still and only attempting to breathe through giggles. "You're. a pain." He gasped out, trying to catch back his breath.

A fit of giggles escaped her, "And you're ticklish." She grinned, then wrapped her arms around him, laying her head against his chest, closing her eyes and smiling happily as she gave him a huge hug. He blinked slowly in shock, then smiled, chortling. He sat up and she scooted back, sitting in his lap with her hand bracing herself on the floor.

"So whatcha wanna do?" She asked, titling her head to one side like a curious puppy.

"Dunno, food sounds good."

"Food does sound good." She agreed solemnly, then grinned at him again, scrambling out of his lap and standing up, hands on her hips. "So does that mean we eat breakfast?"

"Maybe, breakfast sounds good." He grinned and she giggled, nodding again.

"Yep, especially breakfast with food." She half skipped over to the door, stopping there to look back at him. "I'm gonna go get dressed, okay?"

"Yeah, me too. Then I'll get us some breakfast with food, kay?" He watched her nod, still giggling to herself, and then bounce towards the room at the end of the hall. Her room, it was right to call it that, he mused, shutting the door and stripping off his night clothes and changing into a pair of jeans and a tattered black T-shirt that had, "I Love Me, But Who Wouldn't?" strewn across the front in bright neon letters. Once dressed, he headed towards the kitchen, intent on making breakfast, although he wasn't quite sure how well THAT was going to turn out.

About ten minutes later, Nicky bounced out of her room, headed to the bathroom where she splashed water back from her face and attempted to smooth down her ratty hair, gave up and half-danced toward the kitchen, singing to herself. She was quite surprised though when she entered the kitchen and found that it had vanished and a war-zone had somehow replaced it. BJ stood in the middle of it all, scowling and muttering curses at the frying pan that he was attempting to separate with an item that vaguely resembled a pancake.

"Is that food?" Nicky spoke up, having had been watching the battle with interest from a seat at the table for several minutes and speaking after he'd managed to pry the. thing from the pan and dump it onto a waiting plate.

"Uh.maybe?" He said, looking a bit sheepish at the plate, which he dumped down in front of her.

She stared at it quite intently for a full minute before whispering reverently, her eyes still fixed on the object, "What is it?"

"Um, an egg?"

She experimentally poked at it, then picked it up (amused by the fact that it was solid as a rock) and nibbled at it. "Sorta tastes like caterpillars. Y'know, those orange one's that only come in the summer time when it's reaaaally hot out?"

"Is that good or bad?" He raised an eyebrow with the question, at the same time not really shocked by the fact that Nicky ate caterpillars.

"Neither?" The answer had an uplifting tone to it, more of a question than an answer and he chuckled, grabbing the coffee pot and pouring himself some.

"That'll do then." He sat down opposite her, noticing her outfit for the first time, a pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved purple shirt that had black cobwebs all over it. The kid was SUCH a natural Goth, he thought to himself, amused.

Breakfast passed in companionable silence and when Nicky had finished her caterpillar-tasting egg, she stood up, looking around for where she should put her empty plate.

"Sink." Beetlejuice motioned to the already full kitchen appliance with a nod of his head. She walked over, scrutinizingly studying the mound of dishes before finding a place to tuck hers away.

"Well, I'm gonna go put all my clothes away, kay?" She spun around to face him, hands behind her back as she balanced on one foot.

"S'fine, I'll prolly still be in here when you're done." He answered, settling back in his rickety chair and watching her carefully hop out of the room on one foot.

Nicky rummaged though the paper bag, pulling out articles of clothing and sorting them. 'Let's see.pants, pants, shirts, shirts, underoooooos." She hummed merrily to herself as she mentally stated the names of the clothes as she divided them into their own piles. The dresser in the room was empty, so it was easy to put away the clothes, pants in one drawer, shirts in another, etc., and once she'd finished, she ran out of the room, giggling madly. BJ was, as he'd said, still in the kitchen, lingering over the lukewarm remains of his coffee and skimming over the newspaper. He looked up as barged in, grinning at him like a lunatic. Or just one, overly- energetic hyperactive kid.

"C'mon, let's do something!" She tugged on his hand, and he stood up, letting himself be lead around.

"What?"

She shrugged with her free arm, "I dun care, what's in the back yard?"

He shrugged with his own free shoulder. "Junk."

Her eyes widened in interest. "Like the garage?" She squealed hopefully.

The ghost managed a smile at her. "Yeah. Guess collecting junk, or uh, just not clearing it away is a hobby of mine. The living room had a glass door that led to a small back porch that had been screened in at one time, and was, predictably, cluttered with more junk. They wove through the mess on the floor to get to the door, which took a moment of grunting and pushing for Nicky to force it open. One of her silly-sounding laughs escaped her as she looked around, wide-eyed at the yard, vast and covered with naturally brown grass and small mountains of odds and ends, like a mini junk yard.

"Oooo!" She let go of his hand and ran ahead, disappearing behind a mound, laughter in her wake. BJ dug his hands into his jeans pockets, following at a moderate pace, an amused half-grin on his face. When he caught up with her, she was closely inspecting a small trampoline. Her eyes met his in question as he walked up and he nodded.

"S'all right, knock yerself out." He settled on a decaying couch, watching her climb onto the trampoline. And stay on the damned thing for nearly an hour, singing and jumping non-stop before she finally got off her adrenaline rush and climbed off. She managed to wobble over to him and plop down on the spot next to him, the springs of the cushion groaning in protest even under her modest weight.

She sighed in both exhaustion and contentment, relaxing into the creaky sofa. "Man, THAT was fun."

"Yeah, and I think we're both benefiting from you getting that outta your system." He remarked with a rueful shake of head, while she took the opportunity to snuggle up against him, body slumped with fatigue.

"BJ?" She said after a long moment, nuzzling her head against his chest.

"Huh?" Instinctively, he wrapped an arm around her, making it more comfortable for both of them to snuggle on the couch.

"Um, when I got here yesterday morning, you were all surprised-like and said I was living." Her brow furrowed in thought. "Aren't you?"

"Nah, I'm dead. The ghost with the most." He said proudly, looking down at her with an impish grin.

She giggled at the title. "Is everyone else here ghosts too?"

"Yeah, the Netherworld is the Land of the Dead, after all."

"Oh, I get it. And it makes sense why you're so old. How old again?"

"638. No wait." He looked up at the sky thoughtfully, squinting an eye. "Sorry, 1,276 years old."

"Didn't you say 638 yesterday?"

"Uh yeah, it's half of my age. I'm actually not quite sure why I said it, though. Just get a little mixed up sometimes, I guess." He tapped his head to emphasize the point.

She nodded in understanding. "It's okay, everybody gets like that, right? Sooo. what did you do when you were alive then?"

"Fer chrissakes, you. how th' heck are you asking that with a straight face?" He wondered, still baffled by how the kid was able to take in things so easily.

"Um, cause my face isn't all scrunched up?" She replied innocently.

"Never mind." He ruffled her hair with a grin. "Well, when I was alive." He stopped, eyes raising to stare at the mountain of junk they were facing. Shit, it'd been a long time since he'd thought about it.

Nicky waited quietly, sensing that his silence was important. "Well, I lived a long time ago, obviously, back in Europe when it wasn't Europe. I'm guessing it was somewhere in the general Germany area or.. I dunno. It ain't important. My family was really poor, and we all lived in a little village and well, life was pretty boring and we had to take care of the crops and all sorts of fun stuff like that. Actually, the only thing that really made living good was my sister."

"You had a sister?" Nicky's voice was soft and gentle, some sixth sense holding the tone there.

"Yeah, Danielle. My Mom and Dad weren't exactly the brightest stars of the dark ages, but Danielle.Man she was smart. And a sly little bit." He stopped, mentally smacking himself for not watching his mouth near Nicky. "Brat." The ghost corrected himself, silently astonished by the simple fact that he was curbing his swearing, then continued. "She was a couple years younger than me, and she was pretty much the only friend I had. There weren't all that many other kids my age growing up, so she was the only one anyway." He smiled fondly, thinking back.

But the smile faded, expression growing a bit dark though as he resumed. "But when she was 20, she got real sick, and died. Not really sure what it was, but it didn't really matter. You were lucky if you lived up to 35 years back then, y'know? And then.I guess life just lost it's colors fer me. And then, only a couple of months later, I got sick and died too. Didn't really put up too much of a fight, there wasn't much for me to live for." His voice was unnaturally soft and then her arms wrapped around him, hugging him fiercely as the girl's tears fell onto his T-shirt from where her head was burrowed against it.

"Hey, hey, don't do that." His voice rose, a little panicky and he reached up a hand to smooth down her hair in an attempt to get her to simmer down. "It happened a long time ago, alright?"

"Doesn't matter. It's still sad." She whispered, resting her head against the steady warmth of his chest, tiny fingers touching his arm. "Did you ever find her? When you died?"

"Nah, but y'know, it's not really all that easy to find anybody in the Netherworld. Everyone goes different places when they die, and the Land of the Dead doesn't really have any limits on how big it is."

"I'm sorry."

"Huh? Why?"

"You know why." Nicky's voice was barely above a whisper, still shaky from the aftermath of her tears.

"Guess so." He said, still petting her hair and closing his eyes in contentment. All this time he'd been dead and all the people he'd met. and the person that read him like a book was a little six-year old girl with intelligent bright eyes. The emerald orbs gazed up at him now and she smiled, as at ease as he was. They sat for long time in silence before he broke it, eyes still closed while he spoke. "Y'know, most ghosts as old as me don't last. They lose all purpose and usually go so crazy that they just stop existing."

"Stop existing?"

"Something like that. Or they just become spirits that go back and forth through the Netherworld. Some of them know what they're doing, but most don't."

"So why hasn't it happened to you?"

"Probably because I'm too hyper to let it happen." He articulated with a laugh. "Plus I do stuff, so things don't get too boring."

"What sort of stuff?"

He shifted, suddenly uncomfortable with the honesty of the whole situation and the fact that he felt the need to continue on with it. "Stuff I probably shouldn't be doing. See, I want to get out of the Netherworld for good, but it's not all that easy. Lot of shit's happened to me in this rather long life, and. I'll tell you about it later, kay?"

"Okay." She nodded her approval, closing her eyes as a wave of drowsiness hit her, both from how comfortable she felt and from the exhaustion that comes from totally listening to another person.

Beetlejuice noticed her weight added and her breathing even out as she fell asleep and he thoughtfully gazed up at the sky. ' I SHOULD tell the kid about that rather long life, but. not now. She's too young to hear about it anyhow.' Feeling secure in that thought, he closed his eyes, ready for a nap himself.

*~*~*~*~*~

A slight breeze brushed Nicky's bangs back, cooling her and alerting her awake. Her eyes snapped open and she looked around in confusion for a split second, recognizing her surroundings. Snuggled up in the crook of BJ's arm on a creaky couch in his back yard, with him still asleep. She yawned, muscles tightening as she stretched and sat up, scooting around to face the ghost slumped tiredly on the cushions. A sweet smile crossed her lips and she affectionately brushed his longish hair from his face. His eyes shot open instantly, looking at her. Her tiny fingers tucked the strand of hair behind his hair and then retreated as she set her hands in her lap, smiling at him wider. "'Lo."

"Hey." He rubbed an eye sleepily, smiling as he did so. "You're crazy, you know that? Or just unbearably cute."

"Or both." She nodded, then grinned with a playful wink.

"I'm still trying to figure out how you manage to hang out with me and. I dunno, not get freaked out or anything. And I guess it's more than just hanging out, you actually wanna get close to me." His brow furrowed in confusion.

She looked down, expression turning somber as she answered. "Why does that matter? Y'know, Mother and Father were very beautiful to look at, like they were perfect." She raised her eyes to him, now filled with tears. "But it doesn't mean anything. The way you look doesn't mean a thing."

"Hey hey, s'all right." Beetlejuice was already recognizing the 'I-need-a- hug' look and he wrapped his arms around her, giving the slender body a slight squeeze.

She smiled, bringing her own arms around to return the hug, resting her head against his shoulder. "Anyway, I like the way you look."

He chuckled good-naturedly, "You would." They drew back and she smiled, eyes closing in happiness. Another breeze rustled through and he looked up, realizing that the sun was already quite low in the sky. "It's getting' late, huh? You hungry?"

"Mmhmm!" She nodded enthusiastically, clambering off the sofa with him close behind as she led him back into the house.

"I'll make some food for dinner, alright?" He said as they passed through the glass doors and into the living room, ready to venture into the unknown territory known as "cooking" again.

"N'kay, can you call me when it's done?" She requested, heading for her room after he nodded.

Beetlejuice stalked into the kitchen, chewing absently on his tongue as he tried to figure out how to make supper without burning the house down.

*~*~*~*~*~

"Nicky! Dinner's ready!" He stopped, listening, but didn't hear any response. "Nicky?" He left the kitchen and headed for her room, which. was empty. "Nicky?" His voice rose a bit in concern, breath catching momentarily in his chest, but then a soft clicking noise coming form the bathroom alerted his attention. He paused, listening further and realizing it sounded like. scissors?

"Nicky?" He tapped on the bathroom door. The noise stopped in response.

"Hm?"

"Dinner's ready. You alright?"

"Yeah." Her tone dropped, and he blinked in concern.

"You okay? Can I come in?" 'God, I'm actually asking permission to do something?!'

"Guess so." He cautiously opened the door. Nicky stood at the sink, the scissors he kept in one of the bathroom drawers for clipping his hair in her hands, long pieces of her own hair at her feet and strewn all over the counter. What was left of it was short and uneven, with some pieces still not cut and draping messily down her shoulders.

"Hey, what're you. Why'd you cut your hair?"

"Because I hate it. And I. guess I feel freer without it. Does that make sense?"

"It could." He stepped closer, gently taking the scissors from her. "You want me to fix it up for you?" She nodded, managing a tiny smile and he knelt down, making quick work of her hair and getting it. not exactly in a straight line. 'Well, it looks better than it did.' He tried to reassure himself, although it looked as though a pair of hedge clippers had gone at it. Not that she seemed to mind.

"Thanks!" She brightened, spinning around and placing a tiny peck on his nose. He sat back in astonishment, as if the tiny touch had knocked him down while she shook her head, amazed at how light it felt now, running her fingers through it and scrubbing at it to get the loose strands out, the pieces falling to the tile like feathery snow. "So we eat food now?" She wondered and he pushed himself up, putting the scissors back in the drawer.

"Sounds good."

Dinner was burned spaghetti and beetles, but Nicky had no complaints (although the chef had a lot more trouble shoveling down his creation). After they dumped the dishes in the sink, each headed to their own rooms to get dressed for bed. Once he'd finished, BJ found a broom and dustpan in the garage and swept up all the hair in the bathroom, all the while trying to figure out why she would cut her hair.

As he gathered up the last of it up, the ghost realized that the raggy hair was a sign of neglect on her real parents' part, and that it probably reminded her of her bad experiences with them, weigh her down more mentally than physically. Scowling fiercely, he dumped the hair into the old fireplace in the living room and pulled a box of matches from his jeans pocket. He lit one, tossing it onto the small pile of hair in the fireplace.

The ghost stood still, watching with unnaturally somber eyes as the split ends of hair burned away and didn't move from the spot until it was all gone. Tucking the matches back into his packet, he went to go tuck Nicky into bed, his heart amazingly lighter. She smiled and kissed him on the nose again after she'd slipped under the covers and he was pulling them up to her chin. "Night." He said as he clicked off the light and she smiled, resting her head back against the pillows.

"Night." She smiled back.

His gentle smile didn't fade as he headed for his own room and climbed into bed, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully for almost ten minutes before his attention was diverted by a gentle knock on the door.

Nicky shyly poked her head in, eyes wide and innocent. "Can I sleep with you again?"

A soft 'tsu' sounded from his lips as they formed into a laughing smile and he sat up. "No problem, c'mere."

Her face broke into a grin and she did so, carefully climbing up into the coffin bed and lying next to him. As he pulled the covers over the both of them, her voice broke out with a question. "Um, BJ?"

"Eh?"

"Um, I well, what's your real name? I don't like BJ."

He shifted, a little uncomfortable with answering. "Well, actually, I uh. can't tell ya."

"Why?"

"It's a long story."

"Oh." She was still with thoughtful silence for a long moment. "Then will you tell me later?"

He nodded, breathing a mental sigh of relief at her tone and how fine it was with the situation. "Yeah I will. Promise, okay?" 'And I will, just as soon as I think you're old enough to take it all in.' He concluded mentally.

"That's fine. But." The pause was extremely long and she looked into his eyes as she continued, which were a very faint shade of green, almost looking like a gun metal gray. "Then. can I call you Dad? BJ's too.um, impersonal. Or something." Her expression was both thoughtful and pleading as she kept her gaze with his, obviously trying to figure out what to say. "I just. can I call you Dad?"

He blinked rapidly, swallowing away the lump that was forming in his throat then drew her into a huge hug, his face buried into her hair. ""Do you really want to?"

"Yes." The tone had the finality in it of someone who knew what they were talking about and she tightened her hold on him to accent the word.

He pulled back, eyes glassy as he brushed her now short (and choppy) bangs from her forehead. "Yeah. yeah, that's fine, Nicky." Content, she snuggled back against him, closing her eyes.

Her pale lips moved, the softest of whispers escaping them as she nestled herself further against him. "I love you." With those words, she fell asleep as his arms tightened around her more.

He closed his own eyes, a smile lifting the corners of them up. Just before he drifted off to sleep, a thought occurred to him. 'She called them Mother and Father. But me. I'm Dad. And I love her too.' The smile stayed on his face even after he'd fallen asleep.

*~*~*~*~*~

Man, can it get any sappier? But I really did love this chapter. Whatja think? Feedback please? I'm a little review whore. :P