A/N: "Calling All Angels" is copyright Train. BJ belongs to Tim Burton. This story works better if you listen to the track on loop while reading.
I need a sign to let me know you're here.
All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere.
I need to know that things are gonna look up,
Cause I feel us drowning in a sea spilled from a cup.
When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head,
When you can feel the world shake from the words that I said…
"Beetlejuice, you've forced me to do something I honestly didn't want to do."
The voice broke something in him and he could instantly remember everything. Lydia, the fight, the broken mirror, a translucent figure floating over a hand…and dear God! That girl in the Roadhouse! She was…
"Lydia. That's right," his other self clarified with a disgusted voice. He continued with no change in the timbre of his voice, his entire attitude nothing but contempt for the subject.
"That bitch actually clawed her way out of Purgatory. Fought her way through guards and dimensions and that damnable Cerberus. She tore herself a hole through the gateway and bled on the very doorstep of Hell."
Beetlejuice sunk to his knees on the floor, the dust from the attic floorboards collecting on his black pants. How he wished he was wearing the striped suit his counterpart was wearing now, that he hadn't have thrown it out.
"You…you put her there? In Purgatory?"
And I'm calling all angels…
And I'm calling all you angels…
And I won't give up if you don't give up,
I won't give up if you don't give up,
I won't give up if you don't give up,
I won't give up if you don't give up…
"Yes, I did. I did it to eradicate her from your memories and you from hers. I made you reject her, made her want to and commit suicide so she'd die with no recollection of her life. I personally led her into the deepest circle of Hell and left her there, and fifty years later the bitch actually does the impossible!"
He seemed to be berating himself more than explaining things to Beetlejuice. He flung his fist out at the wall and actually punched a hole through it, collapsing a few timbers in the paneling.
He withdrew his hand and grasped the knuckles, which were bleeding slightly. Collecting himself, he sighed. "But all's well now. Thankfully your indifference caused you to call the NWPD and had them come and collect her. She's safely back in Purgatory and I just need to take you home again and go back into you, blocking out your memories again. Let's go." He reached down and awaited Beetlejuice's hand.
There was a short pause. Beetlejuice's breathing became erratic and he looked up at himself with enraged, piercing green eyes.
"You…put Lydia…in Purgatory!"
"Yes, I did. Now stop this. You didn't make this much fuss when Rachel was gone."
I need a sign to let me know you're here,
Cause my tv set just keeps it all from being clear.
I want a reason for the way things have to be,
I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me.
And I'm calling all angels…
And I'm calling all you angels…
"Rachel…"
"Oh, so even without me in you, muffling your memories, you don't remember her? Foolish little ghost, she was. But she must have loved playing the hero. I can still hear her screams…even if you can't." He said this with a manic little smirk, looking out the window at the slowly lightening sky. It would be dawn soon.
Sounds floated through Beetlejuice's head, sounds that were only echoes of past events. His mind recalled a scene finally that chilled him to the bone.
When children have to play inside so they don't disappear,
While private eyes solve marriage lies cause we don't talk for years,
And football teams are kissing queens and losing sight of having dreams,
In a world where all we want is only what we want until it's ours…
"Please! Control it! Don't…lose…control…!" a white-haired young woman yells from her perch on a nearby roof. She clutches wildly at the roof beams exposed from the earlier onslaught of tearing winds and searing flames. But the figure floating in the air doesn't seem to hear her.
Flaming clouds cover the sky as red lightning crackles overhead. A black tornado rises, its vortex spawning from the heart of the hovering figure.
"It's happening…the gateway to Hell…it's opening!" she cries, not really to inform nonexistent others but merely to assure herself it isn't a bad dream.
The wind picks up, sucking at her dress and causing her to look away from the black light shining from the vortex of the tornado. Suddenly a shadow passes over her.
Hundreds of thousands of spirits pour from the heart of the tornado, their figures melt together and become like a living cloud that blocks out the red sun overhead.
They spill over and on her and she furiously tries to swipe them away to clear her vision, but she can't see through them and tries desperately to get to the edge of the roof.
When she does, her eyes behold the tornado dissipating and condensing into the figure of a man. He remains fixated in the sky and she can see a demonic aura materializing around him.
And Hell itself will open, drowning the very sky in spirits of the damned. With a final burst of the Devil's light, all of the Plain will be eradicated and Death itself will cease to exist.
The verse from a book of mythology she read when she was young in death seemed to echo in the air around her. She struggled to recall the rest, praying she could before the figure released the hellish light.
Blessed witness flung into Purgatory will be all that stops the Devil's Advocate, while the escaped damned returned to their deserved fate will undo the three Planes.
She didn't wait. With a burst of energy, she jumped off the edge of the roof and flew, pushing against the emanation aura, towards the center of the tornado. She broke through the flaming air and shot into the vortex, the black-cloaked figure coming into focus.
"I can't sit by and watch this happen!" she calls to the demon. "If you can't control it, then I will!"
She plunged into the void that had appeared in his chest and a bright light broke the darkness. A deafening silence beat down on the entire city, and the only sound that broke through was one word from the devil hovering in the swiftly deepening sky.
"Rachel!"
And I'm calling all angels…
And I'm calling all you angels…
And I'm calling all angels…
(I won't give up if you don't give up)
And I'm calling all you angels…
(I won't give up if you don't give up)
Calling all you angels…
(I won't give up if you don't give up)
Calling all you angels…
(I won't give up if you don't give up)
Calling all you angels…