AN: Oddly, the line tag is non-functional. Huh. Well, guess we'll have to do without. If you have noticed, this story is going a little more slowly than usual-- i'm back at work now. Yay. I mean, yay! Thank you, those of you who have given this odd little story a chance, and thank you, Sesshoumarusmisstress and WitchyWanda, for reviewing! It means more than you will ever know-- water in the desert... On to the city...

Chapter 3: I Heart NYC

Finding a person had never been particularly difficult as a ghost. Humans and spirits alike resonated with unique energy like a signature, visible in the wide spectrum not-visible by the living. As a ghost, Beetlejuice would have had no problem at all pinpointing the vivid purple energy that was Lydia Deetz. That made it all the more irritating for him as he stood at the edge of an alleyway that jutted out onto Times Square, blinking at the incomprehensible crowd. Business men and women in fussy suits, tourists in I Heart NYC t-shirts with disposable cameras clutched tightly in their hands, as if any respectable thief would be interested in pictures of Times Square; beggars and buskers—the frickin' hoi polloi… and nothing familiar at all.

Of course, New York itself was familiar to him, although he hadn't been to the city in a few decades. Nothing much changed in big cities. Clean parts got dirty, dirty parts got filthy, people prospered and starved. At least there wasn't horseshit and raw sewage all over the streets. That was a bonus. He brushed himself off ineffectually and thought of a plan.

1. Get drunk.

That was a good plan. He nodded to himself and struck out into the street, and then immediately had to revisit his plan.

1. Find a bar.

2. Get drunk.

There. That just about covered it. He knew eventually he would have to add:

3. Find Lydia Deetz.

But he just wasn't quite ready to face that little girl again. Not yet.

A few hours later and a moderate two sheets to the wind, Beetlejuice stepped off the curb of the third bar he had been impolitely asked to leave. He spewed off a few curses involving incontinent camels and something that sounded like mes couilles sur ton nez… he wasn't sure but he thought that might be French. It sounded French. The crowd outside had changed considerably as he had wandered further into the darkness towards East Village, where he had once haunted McSorley's, a fine pub, in the 1800's. He was feeling nostalgic and a little homesick, and truth be told, a little sick, too.

Drinking had never affected him very much as a poltergeist—certainly not the inconveniences of a straining bladder and lack of balance. He had completely forgotten at the first bar that he would have to use the toilet until it was nearly too late, and the sensation was immensely painful. He thought he might have pushed a few people over, but he made it. Except it was the wrong bathroom. Who would think that a pub needed separate bathrooms for guys and gals? Well, anyway, at the second bar he had been more prepared. They had thrown him out for entirely different reasons. The third bar was kind of fuzzy—it had been full of well-dressed young women and he had been having the time of his short life… well, maybe he did remember why they had kicked him out of that one. But it had been worth it!

Now his living body was sending all sorts of strange signals to him, only a few of which he actually had a clue about. His legs felt funny and kind of numb, and his stomach was feeling kind of hollow—he thought that might be hunger. When he had been alive the first time, that has been a pretty common state of affairs. But his hearing was sort of blurry, which hadn't been the case before he had gone into that last bar. He came upon a group of women on the corner and was about to saunter suavely by when, to his astonishment, he recognized a face.

"Jenna?" His voice came out both gruff and squeaky. Very suave. The woman he thought he recognized jumped and turned to stare at him. She looked shaken.

"Do I know you?" He looked more closely at her, and realized he had made a mistake.

He shrugged. "Sorry. Though I knew you."

She paused for a moment, and then said, quietly, "Jenna was my sister."

"Ha! Knew you looked familiar!" He beamed blearily. She looked carefully at him.

"You knew her?"

"Oh, yeah! Jenna and me go way back! Good friend, good girl." She narrowed her eyes at him. A tiny warning bell sounded tinnily in the back of his head, but he dismissed it, as always, as unimportant.

The woman frowned, a glimmer in her eye. "Jenna's dead, mister. Didn't you know, since you were such good friends?" This last was said with heavy sarcasm.

"Yep! Death didn't improve her opinion of men, I tell ya!" he snorted. And then his little universe exploded into pain and red stars. He staggered back, holding his hand to his jaw. The woman's face was crossed with horror and fury.

"How dare you! If I find out you had anything to do with it, I'll kill you!"

He looked at her, feeling incredibly slow. And then, a dawning realization. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Jenna was dead. He met her after she died. And she had told him the whole sordid story—she had been murdered by one of her johns. She had shown him the cuts and bruises around her throat, and he had been at a rare loss for words. Humans thought that ghosts were scary? He backed away, his hands raised in defense, feeling for the first time very vulnerable.

"Hey, I never woulda harmed that girl. Like I said, we was friends. Thassal. I'm sorry." And he was, but he didn't want to stick around and get killed for it, either. Throwing both dignity and caution to the wind, he ran like hell into the relative safety of the darkened streets.