AN: Woo! Long chapter. I think i am writing this backwards, because chapters 5 and 6 were already scribbled out in the notebook before i managed to figure this one out. This has been almost entirely a pen and paper affair. Sometimes it just works that way...


Chapter 4: Stray

Beetlejuice was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he needed to find Lydia Deetz sooner rather than later. He wasn't any good at this living thing and was nervous that he would get himself killed before he made good with her, whatever that meant. And if that were the case, it was entirely possible that he would just…die. Cease to exist. A blip vanished from the map, a star from the sky.

That was just not gonna happen.

From his fuzzy brain and generally poor sense of direction, due mostly to the fact that he hadn't needed to find north for roughly six hundred years, he thought that he might be heading away from Central Park. Past Times Square was…no, Harlem was above Central Park, wasn't it? Well, then this way was the East Village. Some streets in between. He had never bothered to walk all the way down Broadway, now that he thought about it. Never had to. Being alive was really inconvenient.

As he passed street after street and alley after alley, heading deeper into the dark city, his mind began to wander, and as it had had a lot of practice at wandering, he was soon almost entirely disconnected from his sore and weary and hungry body. And his thoughts focused in one direction: Lydia Deetz. Dark little chit of a girl, very gloomy. She was hardly out of diapers, he thought derisively, blithely overlooking his intentions to marry her. Not like he would ever have consummated said union. She really wasn't his type. He liked curvy. If he remembered correctly, and he always remembered correctly about women, she was a little on the scrawny side.

And what was this all about 'making good' with her? He hadn't done any permanent harm to the kid—no one could blame him if she was weird, since that had happened way before he met her. Never for a moment did it cross his mind that he might carry a heavier moral responsibility than a sixteen year old girl. And she had started it, anyway. She was the one that had wanted to cross over in the first place. All this talk about jumping off bridges. She would have ended up a secretary in some dimly lit smoky back office, smacking gum and irritating visitors for the next century or so. Nowhere to go but down.

So what was he supposed to do about it? He certainly wasn't going to apologize. Nothin' to apologize for, anyway. What other sixteen year old girl could claim that she knew the handsome world-renowned poltergeist Betelgeuse? As he saw it, he had done her a favor. In fact, he didn't really need to see her after all, did he? He could just get on a boat headed for Jamaica and spend out his year in sunny bliss. The East River led to the ocean eventually, didn't it?

Thinking such cheerful thoughts, Beetlejuice crossed E 23rd St, passing from Flatiron to Union Square, with his favorite pub less than a mile away, and he never even heard them coming. As a ghost, it would have never been possible to sneak up on him, so the possibility that he might be caught unawares never crossed his mind, until it happened. With quick and brutal efficiency he was taken down, robbed, kicked, and thoroughly humbled in less than half a minute.

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For just a moment, he kneeled on the neatly swept sidewalk, listening to the running footsteps of his attackers melt into the alleyways and backyards of the handsome Civil War era townhomes that surrounded him. His ribs ached, but his pride hurt much, much worse. As he sat, he began to feel a strange sensation welling up from the pit of his belly. What had just happened… it wasn't just about the money, or the bruised ribs. He had, in a few seconds, lost something so much more intimate—his feeling of invulnerability lay shattered in the street in front of him.

Why he struggled to his feet and continued on toward the pub, he would never be able to explain. Some machine of fate had caught him up, and he hardly was aware of its movements until he looked up in a daze and saw the wide windowpanes and rough oak door of McSorley's Pub. He was standing and staring still when a crowd of young people in brightly colored tattoos and piercings flocked out, laughing and chatting. Huh, he thought. When did they start lettin' women in? He watched them pass by in a slow-motion haze, when one stunningly recognizable profile, pale beneath dark eye makeup and spiky bangs, jumped into clear focus. Before he could think better of it, her name escaped his lips. "Lydia!"

She turned at the sound of that voice. The man who had uttered her name with such deep and familiar passion was a stranger. His wild blonde-white hair straggled wildly in all directions, curling over his forehead and ears. Brilliant green eyes in a thin, well-defined face, and a blackening bruise on his cheek. Lean, dirty, and scuffed, he was a complete stranger. But that voice… that voice she would know in her sleep. Her jaw unhinged slowly in pure astonishment. "Holy hell! Who let you out?"

He cocked his jaw slightly askew. That was completely not what he was expecting. Lydia's friends paused with her, interested but not prying, and pretended to continue their conversations. She carefully stepped a little closer, as if moving suddenly might set him off like a landmine. Beetlejuice responded in kind, though he would never have admitted it.

"I'm here because of you, Lyds." He lifted a dramatically upswept eyebrow at her. When she crinkled her dainty brow at him in confusion, he made a little dog-circle with his hands outspread. "No nuclear weapons, no snakes, no rings. I got nothin'!" Okay, so that last word might have come out a little harsh. He tried again. "Except you."

Her mouth twitched in the shadow of a sneer. "Well, then, you've got nothing." She tuned to go and her friends moved to close ranks, and a searing heat burst in his stomach. She was going to leave him. He jumped in front of her, blocking her path, and thought frantically. A boy with dark hair and a scowl shouldered between them, but Lydia put a placating hand on his arm and shook her head. Beetlejuice flashed him a smart-ass grin, but returned his attention to Lydia before he could be bothered to notice the boy's reaction.

"You can't leave me, Lyds. I got less than nothin'. They left me here, and I'm… I'm—oh, it's too horrible to think about! I don't wanna think about it. I'm not gonna talk about it." He cut through the air with his hands in quick, jerking motions. The boy took her arm and tried to pull her away, but she shook him off with a scowl. His over-protectiveness was working in Beetlejuice's favor, plus the punky kid had pimples. Beetlejuice reached out to take her hand, and she tried to pull away from him. Before he could right himself, the boy shoved him back, and Beetlejuice, surprised, lost his balance and fell to his knees.

Lydia turned, irritated, to the boy and spoke in a quiet voice. "It's okay, Benji. He's an old… friend." She knelt down beside him, then. "BJ, what on earth happened to you?"

This was his last chance. He could feel it like the tolling of the last bell. He summoned every humiliation, every hurt, every scrap of feeling that he could manage, and peered at her through his eyelashes. "Take me home, and I'll tell you everything."

She scowled. He noticed that she was very clearly not melting, but scowling. "Is this some trick of yours?"

He gaped at her, and then glanced down at his battered body. More gently than he felt, he took her hand and pressed it against his chest.

"Does this feel like a trick?"

She had shifted her weight to pull away, but then froze, her fingers pressing more deeply into his chest. She even bent down as if to listen, and he caught the faint scent of oranges and sandalwood.

"Your heart… it's beating. And you're…" She lifted her eyes to his and for a moment, they were mere inches apart. "…warm."

He pressed the only advantage he had. "Take me home, Lydia." His voice was a whiskey whisper. "Anything you want to know." And then he steeled himself, because of what had to be said next. "Please."

Her eyes had fallen to his mouth, to watch him speak, and then she sighed, and he knew he had won.

"Why can I never say no to you?"

He caged his triumph in a dangerous, feral smile.