Disclaimer: Beetlejuice and Co belong to Geffen. Alas that he did not choose to make further use of them.

Author's Notes: A deliberate reference to another wonderful romance is tucked away in here somewhere. Free movie related drabble to the person who identifies it! And WitchyWanda (sorry-- i'm a dork ;)), thank you for your kind support—it means a lot!

Chapter 8: Marriage Counseling

Lydia woke to a thunderous racket. She grabbed at her bedspread and tried to see what was going on around her, but all she could see was what looked like a thunderstorm, except that it was in her room.

"What the hell is going on, B?" she screamed, but she couldn't see him. Then she heard a familiar voice, heavily distorted with anger.

"Beetlejuicebeetlejuicebeetlejuice!" And then, silence so sudden than she felt it happen. As the glare faded from her eyes, she blinked and could make out a figure standing by the mirror. Unfortunately, she already knew who it was. And her stomach plummeted.

"Hi, Juno." She smiled weakly, but the old woman glared thunderously at her.

"What are promises for, Lydia Deetz, if they aren't ever kept?" Juno stalked over to the bed, which Lydia belatedly realized was still in the middle of the room, and then sat down wearily. She looked the same as ever, with the huge gash in her throat flooding out smoke from the cigarette clutched in her fingers.

Lydia attempted to look meek. "I was in bad trouble, Juno. Beet… B saved me."

"So I heard. Knight in shining armor." She turned to Lydia and wagged her cigarette at her. "You should listen to your own advice, sometimes, Miss Deetz. If you thought you had trouble then, you surely have trouble now. He's not easily dissuaded, and especially with such encouragement as you have given him!" The last four words were pitched to be audible to the entire dorm, and Lydia winced.

"I know I broke my promise. But he has been really… calm. We've been talking."

Despite herself, Juno was curious. "About what?" But Lydia shook her head.

"First, tell me how you knew he was here."

Juno laughed, surprising Lydia into a smile. "He doesn't keep secrets well, Lydia, even though he may think he does. Because of his… well, his EMF and Gauss are off the scale, really… his ectoplasmic trail is the size of Halley's Comet, and he can't hide it. Might as well put a neon sign above his door… "Gone to rescue Lydia."

"So when he… left, you knew it was me?"

"Better. Since he mostly uses mirrors, I just had to find the one that resonated with his… particular signature. When I came through, he was… well, I just, I didn't know that you knew that he was… that you would allow…" She fumbled to a stop, flustered. Lydia blushed, feeling a little ashamed. Juno must have thought he had taken advantage, and Lydia had no convincing explanation for it herself.

"I was tired," she murmured. "He was telling me about how he died, and then… what?"

Juno was staring at her with open shock. "He told you how he died? Beetlejuice told you that?" Lydia gaped; Juno had forgotten herself enough to utter his name. She nodded, bemused.

"And then I guess I fell asleep, because I don't remember much of anything else, except maybe the bed spinning around, and… and that's all." But she flushed, vividly remembering fingering his collar now, and his reply to her thoughtless inquiry. Juno was silent for a moment, and then she seemed to come to a decision.

"Lydia, you must know what he wants from you."

Lydia nodded. "He said that he wanted to marry me, so that he could get out permanently."

Juno shook her head and smiled a sad smile. "That's what he thinks, is it? I may be doing him a disservice, but he has done me a fair number, so he owes me. I am going to tell you the rest of his story, Lydia." Juno stood and pulled out the wooden chair from under the desk, and sat in it, and then paused to light another cigarette. Lydia settled in, crossing her legs and pulling the comforter over her lap. "After he served his time, he put up a terrible fuss with the Administration. He felt that he had been cheated, and wanted to see the world. Now sometimes we have a choice, and sometimes we don't, and he wasn't one of those who did. No unfinished business or anything like that. The plague was like that; it took so many families whole that there was no soul memory. So they were going to send him on, but he kept embroiling everyone in massive amounts of paperwork, and so we were distracted when he went to appeal to a… higher authority." She grunted, remembering his audacity. Lydia smiled softly, thinking that sounded very much like him.

"The upshot of this… meeting… was this: he would get to stay, and somehow in the process he got upgraded to, well, something pretty terrifying, if you ask me. In the presence of certain kinds of energy, we can absorb it and, well, he absorbed a great deal. I think he must have known, and used his ability to distract in that matter as well. Scoundrel." But she said the word with some fondness, and Lydia began to suspect that Juno's feelings for him were not as simple as she made out. That certainly made two of them. "Anyway, the condition was that he could stay for an indeterminate time in the Netherworld, but could only return to Earth if he could convince someone to say his name three times. He only found out afterwards that he had lost the ability to say his own name." She smirked. "Not that that ever stopped him. He was always a clever fellow." She smiled then, until she noticed Lydia smiling with her. "Too clever! And now he's got you in his clutches."

"I'm not in his 'clutches', Juno. I… he was just telling me a story and I fell asleep. That's all. And I'm not going to marry him, don't worry." But Juno scowled again, and Lydia had a feeling she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding her not-so-simple feelings.

"Lydia, it's not marriage that will set him free. Let me tell you the rest, before you come to any conclusions." Juno punctuated her narrative with stabs of the cigarette. "A few hundred years ago, the conditions set against him started to chafe, as you can well imagine, and he somehow arranged another 'meeting.' Well, he has some ability for making friends, although as to him keeping them… Anyway, he came back with the following condition. If he could find someone that loved him first, before anything else, and whom he loved before anything else as well, then he would be free." She looked down. "He thought he was getting a signed pardon. I knew it for what it was: a tantalus."

Juno looked piercingly at Lydia then, and Lydia looked back for a moment, and then down at her knees. "He might possibly get you to love him, Lydia. You have that look in your eye, even now, of being willing to be convinced." She held up her hand to Lydia's feeble protest. "But nothing on this earth, underneath it, or over, will ever move him to love anyone or anything more than he loves himself. So he is well and truly stuck."

They were both silent for a long while, Lydia processing and Juno allowing her the time. Finally, Lydia stirred herself. "Why do you care so much about him?" Juno gave her a sharp look, and then slumped a little, looking defeated.

"I thought you might have already figured that out." She stared into the middle distance for a moment, gathering herself. And then, in a weary voice, she murmured, "He's my grandson." Lydia's jaw dropped. Juno sighed, and straightened. "I can't tell you what to do, Lydia. I can only beg you to be careful. He is about as dangerous as dangerous gets, and I don't say that to make him sound attractive to you." She looked speculatively at Lydia. "You may be a good influence on him, but if that fails, I don't care to think of the consequences. Or the paperwork." And with that enigmatic statement, she faded into the gloom. But Lydia got no more sleep that night, and only startled from her reverie with the sound of her roommate's key in the lock.