Chapter Six: Storm
But that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, he thought sourly.
"That's your big plan?" Lydia stared at him with palpable disbelief. "You were planning to cop a feel and that was going to get you the big baddie?" Beetlejuice scowled darkly and hunched against the verbal onslaught as if he were weathering a storm. "I can't believe this! Here I… I trusted you! Laid down in your arms, thought that we might actually survive this and possibly even someday speak civilly to each other, and now this?" She threw down her hands. "Gods!"
He sneered at her, feeling something burn in his breast that he hadn't felt in a long time. Each word out of her mouth made him feel worse and worse, until the hurt coalesced into anger. "Got a better idea? Hey, I do—howabout I just leave you two girls to chat? Because I don't need to be here, Lyds. I got about a zillion things I'd rather do than sit here and listen to how much you hate me!" And then he wished he could have swallowed those last words. Shit. Shitshitshit. He collapsed on the bed, arms splayed, completely frustrated. And to make matters absolutely impossible, he could still taste the delicious heat of her mouth on his lips. Aggravating, infuriating girl!
"Is that what this is about, Beej?" Lydia's voice was brittle. "I'm not being nice enough to you? Goddamn it, Beej! I'm only here because of you!"
"I could say the same! Except oh yeah! I'd be right! You called me! I stayed for you, Lydia." He clapped both hands over his face, and his body convulsed as if he were throwing a tantrum, shaking her bed so hard she had to grab hold of the headboard to keep from falling off. "I chose this."
"And that makes you more noble? I haven't seen you bleed!"
"No! Because the damage you do is on the inside!" In for a penny, he thought belatedly. But it was far too late. Comprehension was dawning on her features. And then her brow wrinkled, and she rested her face in her hands. He swore softly. "You know, I thought we had somethin'. You call, I come, we work this out together, and then we see what happens…"
"You are a ghost, Beej. I am alive. How could anything possibly happen?" She still couldn't look at him.
"What just happened, then? When I kissed you? What happened there, Lyds? Were you just pretendin'? Because that didn't feel like pretense." His voice had gone soft and cold, like whiskey over ice. Under her hands, she gritted her teeth.
"I don't know." Her hands fell to her lap, and he was chagrined to see that her cheeks were wet with tears. "I don't know anything except that I'm scared, and I set all my hope on you, and now I don't know what to think." She looked at him, and her expression was bleak. He sighed, and shook his head like a dog. And then, on the thready edge of his consciousness, the alarm bells began to ring.
"Trust me." He could not have begged for anything more sincerely in his life than at that moment. Because he could feel something that she could not. Clara was coming back
"How?" Her voice was the barest whisper.
"She's here, Lyds." And then he squinted, and gritted his teeth as if he were in terrible pain. Lydia looked around the room, trying to see, and not daring to move away from him now that She was here. She clutched at his arm fearfully.
"Are we safe? Can you keep her back?" Under her hand, his muscles flexed and trembled, and he reached out and took hold of her wrist.
"Somethin's wrong." And then Lydia heard a throaty chuckle that raised the hackles on the back of her neck.
"No … something is finally right … Gabriel." Lydia felt the slap of warm air as their cage collapsed. Beetlejuice snarled, a terrible wild sound that filled Lydia with a desperate fear. A shapeless mass curled around them both, sweltering and suffocating. Beetlejuice looked up at Lydia through heavily hooded eyes, and shook his head.
"I can't… M' sorry, Lyds." And then, so softly that she forgot about being afraid, he reached out, cupped the back of her head, and kissed her. His mouth pressed against hers, tenderly, and a strangely heavy shock of heat passed between them. She tried to pull back reflexively but he held on to her with immense strength. When she eased down, he kissed her on the cheek, and then pressed his lips against her ear. "Marry me…" he whispered, and it echoed through her head
With an inhuman shriek, Beetlejuice was ripped away from her and thrown off the bed onto the floor. She saw him blanketed with a foul, reeking mist, made from something more than dead. He fought for his life, but he had lost the advantage. It was over within minutes. When he stood, his body was the same, but the mechanism within was very, very wrong. As Lydia watched in horror, his elfin, wicked features began to bubble and run, and reshape themselves. The healthy muscle of his chest and arms was bent and broken, and she squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden rush of tears.
"Open your eyes, girl!" It wasn't his voice anymore. Lydia's eyes snapped open against her will, and she was forced to look at what had become of her protector. The ghost who stood before her was small and lithe, like a picture of a woman from the nineteenth century, with small feet and a narrow waist. She had long dark hair piled on op of her head, and was wearing breeches and a worn woolen coat. Her eyes sparkled insanely. "Lovely, don't you think? All this energy in such a shabby form as his! Shocking, how he let himself go over the years..." Clara, for it was unmistakably she that had taken over Beetlejuice so completely, stretched languidly, and then gave Lydia a sharp look. Lydia, dumb with shock and grief and fear, could only stare back. Clara minced over to her and stroked her cheek with a cold hand. Lydia twitched to avoid her, thinking how desperately she wished it could have been him… if she just had another chance.
"Pretty… I can see what he sees in you. I can hear him yelling even now. How annoying. But in time, he'll give up the ghost!" She tittered musically, and then her dainty brow wrinkled slightly. "But we can't have you calling him back now, can we?" Lydia felt a sickening lurch in her throat, and started to gag. Her mouth felt like it was filling up, and she had to struggle to breath. Clara smiled brilliantly at her. "There, now, just like old Jack! He died too slow. Such a shame for such a pretty girl as you." Lydia tried to speak, but her tongue wouldn't work. She could still scream, though, and she howled out her pain even as Clara laughed at her.
"Well, ta, dearie. I'm going to take this fine new body for a test drive, I think! So dreary being exorcised, and all in tatters. It took so long to just gather the strength to move! This is so much better! But don't worry… I'll be back. You've such a nice place here—I think I'll stay!" With a bang like thunder, Clara vanished, and with it, Lydia's last hope.
She had lost him. Clara had never wanted her at all. Lydia had just been the gateway to the bigger prize. Sorrow and regret consumed her. This was her fault. She had been played, from beginning to end, and Beetlejuice was the victim.
His last words echoed in her head. Marry him? Hot tears flooded out of her, and she wrapped her arms around her body and sobbed great wracking sobs, choking around her mute, swollen tongue. At the moment, she would have done anything in the world just to be able to tell him 'no' to his face.