AN: A nod to the fabulously creepy and revealing theater scene in Donnie Darko. And hugs to everyone else. The leaves are turning.

Soundtrack: Written to Chimera by Delirium.

Chapter 7: Dream

Lydia was dreaming.

She knew this because she wasn't breathing. And if she were dead, she would not be dreaming. Did Beetlejuice dream? If so, it would not have been of this, she was fairly certain. Of course, with him, one could never be certain.

She sipped her drink, a nicely bubbly fountain Coke, which was the best kind of Coke to have, 2-liter bottles being the absolute worst, especially after a few days of constant opening and closing, when the burst of carbonation was reduced to just a pathetic fizzle. In her lap was a big tub of buttered popcorn, still warm from the popper, and she reached in and took a few kernels. Even though she was dreaming, the popcorn tasted salty and good.

On the big screen, images flashed rapidly, seemingly disconnected. The galloping withers of a roan horse, and a glimpse of thin pale legs squeezing the horse's flanks tightly. Some grand vista of ancient countryside from the top of a mountain. A dark little girl, laughing as she splashed water in the direction of the camera, if there was one. The face of a mother, hard from constant work but with room in her pale green eyes for a gentle gleam of love. Lydia didn't remember her own mother ever looking at her like that, but it was probably just because it had been too long. She was forgetting.

Gradually she got the sense, hazily, that she was seeing the visions through someone else's eyes. Young girls walking by tried to appear uninterested, giggling when they thought the object of their admiration wasn't looking. The glowing heat of a forge, and strong hands… her hands, but it wasn't her at all. A man's hands, wiping a filthy cloth over a leanly muscled chest. She couldn't feel anything but her Coke and popcorn, but she could see as if she were looking through his eyes. The face of a lovely young woman, laughing with her eyes. Dark before the dawn, chasing through the woods, and then Lydia squeezed shut her eyes as she became an involuntary voyeur to lovemaking in the dawn light, and laughter, and soft whispers. Deeply uncomfortable, Lydia shifted in her chair, but the visions followed her. Blinding sunlight, and travel by horseback to a large city.

And then something changed. The same hands, older, struggling to form letters on a sheet of parchment. G…a…b…r…i…e…l , in halting, unformed script. Lydia's heart, which had not been beating, suddenly pounded in her ears. Gabriel. She knew that name. She knew whose hands these were. And then, in a silvered mirror, she saw his face, as he adjusted a heavy woolen dark brown cloak that buttoned against his right shoulder, and tugged down a plain grey tunic underneath it. In a rare moment of unguarded calm, he squinted at his own reflection, and flashed that smile she knew so well. With dramatically upswept eyebrows and broad jawline, he wasn't the most handsome of men. But the sparkle in his jade eyes and the knowing tilt of his smile more than made up for any flaw in bone structure. He looked… he looked kind. Like someone she would have liked to know.

She did know him.

"I know you."

"Of course you do. Try to keep up." Lydia turned to her right, and sitting beside her in the chair was the young man, his hair long in the back and hanging loose in soft golden curls.

"I'm lost."

"Not yet." He slid his hand over hers, and it was as cold as ice. She laced her fingers through his, finding comfort from his nearness.

"You're lost."

"Maybe. But if you stay found, then we've still got a chance."

"A chance for what?" She arched her eyebrow curiously, and he tipped his chin toward the movie screen. On it, she saw herself, laughing in the dawn light, with his hands against her shoulders, and she couldn't tell who was more pale. She blushed. "You always want what you don't have the right to."

"You asked me what I wanted. This is what I want."

"Why can't it just be simple?"

"I guess that's your question to answer." His voice was like honey and gravel, all at once.

"I don't know what to do, Gabe." She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he kissed her forehead gently.

"She doesn't have all the cards."

"How many cards does she have?"

In response, he tucked his hand into the pocket of his gray tunic and pulled out a few worn and tattered playing cards, and handed them to her, face down. "More important is which ones we have."

Lydia flipped them over. A skeleton, bent over a cane, leered back at her. Nothing was written below, but Lydia knew she was holding the Death card. She glanced up, but the seat next to her was empty. Frowning, she flipped over the second card. A man was stepping carelessly over a cliff. Written below was the word 'Fool.' Feeling less the comforted, Lydia turned over the final card. Two bodies intertwined with the winding vines of a rose. 'Love.'

She should have known.

"That's what we have? Death, foolishness, and your crazy obsession with me? I'm not comforted, Gabriel."

"You don't get it—you're so blinded by your own hang-ups that you can't see the truth. And I am not obsessed, okay? Get over yourself." He was sitting in front of her, in all his scruffy poltergeist glory. She found herself strangely relieved that he looked 'normal' again, whatever that was. His hands turned each card restlessly over and over.

"You get over me first."

"Love to, babes." He leered at her, and she flushed.

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Freud would have a field day with you."

"Fuck off."

"Like I said…"

"Dammit, Beetlejuice. I am going to die, and you are already gone, and all you can think of is sex?"

"No, all you can think of is sex. This is your dream, Lyds. Now shut up and listen." Lydia's mouth, already open in protest, snapped shut. "The Death card is about change. The end of somethin' old, something broken. The Fool is about forgettin' your humanity, and just filling yourself up with pleasure until you can't see which way is light and which darkness. Follow me?" She nodded, mute. "Love is about wantin' somethin' so bad you have to have it—about sellin' your whole life out for the one thing that means more to you than anythin' else." He paused, and took a deep breath. "You have to figure out what belongs to who, Lyds. She took all of that away from me. All I got is this…" He held up his hand, and there was the ring that she had bound him with, glimmering gently in the silver white light. She looked down at her own hand, and the ring was still on her finger.

"I don't understand."

"…and this." He held out his other hand, which was empty. And then his strong fingers slowly curled into a fist. She stared at his hand for a moment, and then back to his face. "The rest is you, Lydia. Hit her where she's weak."

And he was beside her, and his lips brushed against her cheek. "No matter what, I trusted you with my life. Remember that." And then he was gone.

She lifted her hand to her cheek, but the ghosted kiss was already fading. "Thanks, Beej. That makes me feel so much better…"

Lydia woke from her dream. And she was not dead. She opened her eyes to see Clara pacing back and forth across the floor, punching one hand rhythmically into the cup of the other. She looked very, very angry. Lydia closed her eyes quickly, before Clara turned to see that she was awake.

Amend that last. She was not dead yet.