AN: I couldn't sleep.

Chapter 14: Available

Lydia's parents came and got her that night. They took her back to Connecticut, to the old house, and she told them everything—all of it, in her terrible grief. How he had come to her, and how she had loved him, and how he had left her and she had lived, when it should have been the other way around. And then she stopped talking, except to whisper his name in the dark. Even that stopped, in time. Charles and Delia were both beside themselves with concern, but Lydia would talk to no one.

Finally, after a week of Lydia's shadow floating about the house in the darkness, Barbara, sick with worry for her health even more than she was horrified that her little girl had been seduced by that monster, made a decision. "Adam, we have to talk to Juno about this. Maybe she can do something! As much as I hate that damn poltergeist, I love Lydia more."

Adam sighed, softly stroking his wife's cheek. "Barbara… I don't know if anything can be done." He smiled sadly at her then. "We can't even change our own clothes, or leave the house. What can we do?"

"We can try." He nodded, and kissed her. "We still have two vouchers, right? She has to see us."

o0O0o

"Juno is not available. How many times do I have to say it?" The blue-skinned receptionist slammed the little plastic window in Adam's angry face. She had just gotten the damn poltergeist's mess cleaned up, and here he was finally out of her hair forever and some damn newbie apparitions were trying to plead his case. Ridiculous.

Barbara threw open the door against the now-shocked receptionist's hand and broke one of her carefully manicured nails. "This is not about us." Miss Argentina flushed a little, turning her already interesting complexion an odd shade of purple.

"If it's about… HIM, then she is REALLY not available. Ever. She is not going to talk to you and that is that!" She tried to shut the little plastic window again, and Barbara caught the other side and they struggled furiously against each other for a moment, Adam yelling encouragement to his wife.

"STOP IT!" They all turned, flushing like little children caught in a schoolyard brawl. Juno was livid with anger, trembling in the doorway. "Maitlands! Come with me!" She turned and stalked out of the doorway. And then turned back and shook a finger at the entire room. "I never want to see anyone fighting in here ever again!" Barbara and Adam scurried after her, but Adam flashed a triumphant look over his shoulder at Miss Argentina, now a lovely shade of fuchsia, scowling thunderously from behind the desk.

But once the door was closed in her office, Juno sank behind her desk, looking exhausted. She held a cigarette in her hand, unlit. "I don't know what to tell you, Maitlands. It was all done by the Rules."

"What was done? What Rules?" Barbara leaned forward in her chair, and Juno sighed again.

"Have you still not read the book?" Adam glanced guiltily at his wife, and she shrugged. "Well, I guess this isn't really in that book. It's more in the later volumes, once you've decided whether to stay or go on." She lit the cigarette, but let it burn unsmoked for a moment. "Beetlejuice Traded his life for Lydia's. It was all above board. He knew what he was doing. And the Rules are very clear—you can't undo something like that. He should never been able to do it at all. But he was just so powerful…"

"Was? You mean, 'is', right? Is powerful?" Barbara smiled nervously. But Juno just shook her head.

"He anchored her soul to the Living World, you know? Did they tell you?" But of course, no one had. "He held her soul back. He shouldn't have been able to do that. No one can do that… now. And he Traded. A life for a life. I had to watch him die. I watched him die for her." Juno fell silent. And then, "I didn't know he had it in him."

"But how could he have traded? I mean, people can't do that, can they?"

"People won't do it." Juno scowled, and took a deep drag from her cigarette. "There are a lot of things people could do if they just cared less about their own skins."

"But what can we do? He can't be gone, Juno. God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but he has to come back."

Adam squeezed her hand, and nodded. He cleared his throat, gruffly. "Not just for Lydia. You know, she may get over him. But I think that we… need him. God, I can't believe I'm saying this." He sighed. "I mean, he saved our lives, too, Juno."

"Nothing about any of this is fair. I'm sorry, too. I miss him already. I can't believe I feel that way, but I do. He was always so much trouble. So much damn paperwork. But he's gone. It's done. I'm sorry." And she truly was. They all sat in silence for a moment, and then Adam slowly stood to go. But Juno frowned thoughtfully. "Wait. I don't suppose he left anything of his behind, did he? Jewelry, or a book, or anything like that?" Barbara thought for a moment, and then shook her head.

"I don't think so. Lydia didn't bring anything with her from the apartment. I think she would have, if he had left anything behind."

Juno waved sadly. "Well, it's probably nothing. He was just always so sneaky… it would be just like him to tuck something away somewhere… but how could he have, when the Administration made certain he didn't have access to anything of his own?" She shook her head. "It's over. Just do what you can for the little girl. I don't need any more office help these days. Too much as it is." With that chilling thought, she vanished. Barbara and Adam stared at each other for a moment, and then rushed to get out the door and back to the house.

o0O0o

Lydia came out of her room for the first time in a week, and her parents made her hot cocoa and clam chowder and rice krispie treats all on the same night. She smiled wanly and attempted to eat to please them. Just an hour before, Barbara and Adam had rushed into her room suddenly after having been gone for two days, fearful that she was suicidal and telling her how awful the hours were, and what a bitch the main receptionist was. She shook her head, anxious to reassure them.

"I'm not suicidal. That would be a waste, when he died… when he died to make sure I stayed put. I could just see his face…" She felt tears welling up again—she was getting dehydrated from all the crying. Adam hugged her close, and stroked her hair. "I can't see his face, can I?" Barbara shook her head sadly.

"I'm sorry, baby."

But Lydia came out anyway, and ate, and tried to feel normal again. It was both easier and harder at this house. Instead of thinking, 'I made a bed for him here', or, 'He made love to me here'… she thought, 'He tried to kill my father here', and 'This stair rail was once possessed by him.' The miniature town model was housed in her old bedroom, and she stared at the cemetery until she fell asleep on her hands. And in this way, little by little, she began to feel that life might be worth living again. After another week, she was determined to face her apartment again, even though Charles begged her to stay for another week. But she was ready, and a determined Lydia could never be put off for long.

o0O0o

It was dark when she got home. She wept in the hallway, and again in the living room, where the pile of clothing she had bought for him still lay piled up, waiting. A wild insane hope grabbed at her as she opened her bedroom door, but he wasn't waiting for her. She stretched out on the sheets, and closed her eyes, and cried, and remembered his face, grinning at her from the door, a dark look in his eye that she didn't accurately interpret at the time—how could she have, when he had been in her life, technically, for less than a day? For all of it, they had made a lot of living fit into those few days time. But she had just begun to know him, and now… now she was starting to forget what he looked like. In her memory, he smirked at her, and then held up a hand against a bright flash, and her laughter. Flash.

Flash. Camera flash. Oh gods, a camera. She had taken a picture of him. She fell on the floor in her anxiety to find the camera, and in the next heartbeat a wash of anguish crashed over her. Her camera had been in the bag—the one that the muggers had stolen that night, the night she had been shot. She tried to think… had she changed the card out? Where were her extra cards? But they were all in the bag. Everything had been in the bag that Beetlejuice had carried on his shoulder. In a new wave of grief, she bowed her head.

And then her mouth went dry. Under her desk chair… was her camera. Her hands shook as she reached out for it. It must have fallen out of the bag… and she hadn't checked because she had been in such a hurry, and they been laughing as they had gotten dressed, when he had kissed her and tried to change her mind, his hands where they shouldn't have been… a single tear rolled down her cheek, but this one motivated by joy. Hurriedly, she found the printer in the dark and pushed the camera gently into the dock. The tiny little screen popped up, and showed her the first picture on the card.

With a prayer on her lips, she slowly cycled through the shots. Dead guy, dead guy, blotter, hand, dead guy, old gun… and then, a picture of the city, and what might have been his wild hair, and she shivered in happiness. A shot of the cab… he had taken the camera from her. And then came a picture of her, looking at him… is that how he saw her? In the picture she looked so… in love. Had she ever tried to fool him? She continued through, until she found him. His hand blocking half the view, and the flash of his bright, wicked grin, and an amused, jade-colored glance. Thankfully the camera had found focus on his mouth and not his hand, because otherwise she wouldn't have been able to make out his face, or his expression.

She hit print. And then paged back through, but that was the last photograph on the card. That was all she had left of him. The print ran through cyan, yellow, and then magenta film, and then clear coat, and dropped out onto the drying tray. She lifted it gingerly, and just stared for a moment, tracing his contours with her eyes. He had never been the most handsome of men, although he had been much easier to look at as a man than as the scruffy poltergeist that had given her nightmares. They almost didn't seem like the same person—the ghost and the man. As a ghost he could have lifted her a hundred feet in the air without a strain. As a man, he had lifted her to terrifying heights with just a gentle glance. Well, maybe not so different after all.

"I love you, Beetlejuice. Love, not loved. I love you. Gods, I miss you. Look how crazy you made me—I'm talking to a digital print." She shook her head, and grinned ruefully. "Just think what might have happened if we had spent a whole week together…" But that made her sad again, and she was weary. She set the print down carefully and walked to the bathroom, wishing that she had a shower again so that she could sit under the spray and be pelted into oblivion.

But the bath didn't do anything more than remind her of washing his hair, so she made it as quick as she could, and climbed out, wrapped in a towel even though she knew that she was alone. It was going to be a long night. Lydia smiled sadly down at the picture, reaching to move it to her desk so she could toss and turn all night without wrinkling it. And her heart and hand froze at the same instant. Because in the picture, his hand wasn't blocking the frame anymore. And he was turned toward her, his head tilted and lips pursed in that expression that was always a precursor to mischief.

"Beetlejuice?" She was trembling, and blinked away a tear. The photograph held up two fingers in still frame, and she caught a feral glint of his sharp canines. Her heart was pounding. Juno had asked… Barbara had told her that Juno had asked if he had left anything behind… called him sneaky… she had suspected. Lydia grinned, joy leaking out of her like light. Juno had been right to suspect.

"Beetlejuice!"