Disclaimer: Beetlejuice and all related characters belong to Warner Bros. I wouldn't take responsibility for BJ if you paid me. No way, baby.

AN: Witchy Wanda created a beautiful line drawing for this chapter (How cool is that?) , and i posted it on my homepage. Go see, and then visit her page to look at the rest of her excellent work!

Chapter 3: Coordinated

A quiet week had gone by, after the flying penny incident. Lydia had made a few quiet inquiries about the house, and had heard a few strange stories. The previous owners had left very abruptly, and the house had been empty for nearly two years. When she pressed for details, though, her teachers and the townsfolk patted her hand and told her there was nothing to the stories. She knew they were lying, but she didn't want to force the issue. Yet.

Her dad and stepmother hadn't noticed anything odd, but that was hardly indicative of anything. Delia was completely oblivious to anything that didn't connect directly to her work. Her dad was absorbed in building his studio. If he complained occasionally that a tool had gone missing, he just attributed it to his own absentmindedness. But Lydia had taken to keeping careful track of where she put things, and more than once she found that her key or her book bag or even her fork at dinnertime had been moved.

So with careful observation and a few snippets of reluctant and furtive information, she began to sketch a rough picture of the other inhabitant of the house. It didn't seem to be harmful, although that penny had made quite a dent in the cover of her Burns collection. It liked to play tricks, but nothing too extreme. She came to the tentative conclusion that the previous owners had been timid and easily spooked. This presence would find her a tougher nut to crack.

By the end of the week, Lydia was convinced that she had the measure of her little ghost. But that was just when her little ghost had made up his mind just how to crack her open.

He had watched her watching him all week, her delicate hand falling where she knew her key was supposed to be, and then not raising the alarm. He saw her secret looks, and her quirking smiles. He had even stolen her fork at dinner while she was taking a drink, just to see how she would cover for him, and she barely raised an eyebrow, but excused herself for some ice and came back with another fork. He was intrigued.

Finally, he felt like he had waited long enough. A blunt tipped Sharpie from ol' Chucky's office tucked in his pocket, Beetlejuice cracked his knuckles and brushed back his wild blond hair and prepared to do what he did best: be diabolically annoying.

On this particular night, a Friday, Lydia was, to his complete and total un-astonishment, organizing her books. Did the girl ever run out of books? He thought she might have twice as many books as shelves, but she had managed well enough so far. That was about to change, he thought with unabashed relish. He was going to start subtly, with great delicacy. The tender approach.

But Lydia began by stacking by author, which was just too good an opportunity for him to pass up. Oh, what the hell. No one ever took over the world by being subtle, anyhow. Piers Anthony. Hmm. Looked interesting. She had quite a few, and he liked the one with the skeleton on the cover in a cream-colored Camero. Tasty. He tucked it into his pocket for later. Bio of a Space Tyrant… boring. When her back was turned, he tossed it under the bed. Castle Roogna he put in a pile with Douglas Adams books. But since he hadn't read Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy in a while, mostly since the town library didn't carry anything published after 1973, he stowed that one away, too. It looked well thumbed. He might give it back. In a year.

Lydia's hand settled on the stack where she had just put the Hitchiker's Guide and paused, and then turned, her brow crinkled. She kneeled down in front of the stacks and hunted through them. Looking even more puzzled, she dug back into the box. Not there, little girl. He grinned. This was even more fun than taking the Portland's cat flying.

A blinding flash startled him out of his reverie, and he jerked up, startled. Lydia was looking speculatively around the room, waving a Polaroid in her hand, from the camera she had dug out of the box. Damn, but she was quick! He drifted over to look at the fast developing picture. Cursed if she hadn't caught him. She studied it for a moment, and he studied it over her shoulder. Right at the edge of the photo was a brilliant round orb. He frowned. He was much prettier than that in person. And certainly not round. He stroked his lean cheeks thoughtfully.

"I'll trade you the photo for my books, thank you." Her voice startled him again. And then it took a moment to realize that she was talking to him. This wasn't part of the subtle plan he had been pondering all week. She was waving the photo in the air, and glancing around her room. His room, dammit. "Come on, I know you're here. And you can't have my copy of Hitchiker'sm Guide. I've had it since I was a kid."

He grinned a toothy smile. Was that the game, then? He reached up and nimbly snatched the photo out of her fingers. "I don't trade, babe."

He had startled her. Her eyes were wide and she followed the picture through the air as he tucked it into his breast pocket. But then she did something he hadn't figured on-- she lunged after it. Stupidly, he realized that he had provided her with a target. He backpedaled but she was on him, her hands plunging through his body in a wash of delicious heat.

"Oi!" He scrambled backwards to get clear of her, but her momentum carried her down upon him, and then his back was pressed against the floor and she was sitting on him—in him, for pity's sake, her face inches from his. Had she been able to see him, she would have been really embarrassed.

"Give it back! My mom gave that to me!" And then something else happened that hadn't been in his plans, exactly. Lydia's elfin features twisted; not in fear, but in a deep, wretched grief, and she rocked back on her haunches. "That belonged to my mom. Please…"

Beetlejuice felt something very unfamiliar press against his throat. It took him a few moments to identify it, and was even more discomfited when he had put a name to the ache. Guilt. He scowled. Definitely needed a new plan, because this one was unraveling rapidly. Gods, was she going to cry? Panicking, he reached up to her shoulder and gave her a shove, and she tumbled backwards and lost her balance. He tugged the book out of his pocket and dropped it on the floor beside her like it was burning his hands, and then retreated to the corner of the room to watch the fallout. But it wasn't what he expected.

Lydia took a few long breaths, and then sat up cross-legged on the floor. She picked up the book and stroked the cover, and then hugged it to her breast. And then she looked around her, and in her eyes was mixed relief with a new wariness. He could savor the heat of her, but that look was something entirely different. It gave him butterflies. She stood slowly, and when she spoke, her voice was tight with unshed tears. "I don't know who you are. I don't care if you live here. You can freeze me and steal my fork and throw my books under the bed." Oops—she had seen that. Was he losing his touch? "But please don't… I hardly have anything left of my mom. Please don't touch this." She walked the book over to the shelf and set it down with reverence. And then, to his immense surprise, she quietly left the room.

Well. He rocked back on his heels, still awash with her warmth. A dearly departed mom. Huh. He figured that the carrot top wasn't Lydia's real mom, because they just had that sort of friendly, careless relationship of two people thrown together and behaving themselves. What he didn't figure on was giving a damn about it. Why should he care? He had been dearly departed for 600 years! Well, possibly not so dear, but who thought about things like that nowadays?

Exactly. Nobody. The plan would continue as planned. A rocky beginning always made for a smooth finish, anyway, right? He brandished the Sharpie, and tugged the Polaroid from his breast pocket. Ol' BJ was just getting warmed up.

When Lydia returned, feeling somewhat fortified by a cup of hot chocolate, the book was laying where she had left it, but there was something on top of it. She walked over, curiosity perking up her tired senses. It was the Polaroid. But across the front was scrawled in what looked suspiciously like Sharpie marker, was a string of numbers and letters written in a lazy hand. She read it aloud.

RA5h55m10.3sDC7°24'25"

Well, that was cryptic. But the mystery of her own personal ghost would have to wait until morning. She crawled into bed without bothering to undress, and lay quietly on her pillow. But it was a long time before she got to sleep.

As for the ghost himself, he chewed pensively at his bottom lip, pondering his own personal girl. She didn't even seem fazed by direct contact with the spirit world. She had manhandled him, taken his picture, and demanded that he give back what he had stolen. And even more mortifying, he had done what she wanted. And then she had picked up his little puzzle in her tiny hands, and rather than spending all night pondering it, she had gone to bed. Immediately. He sulked a bit at that, until her warmth was entirely gone from him. And then he had to restrain himself from drifting down on her again. The nickel flashed from hand to hand until well after dawn.