Trouble Lies Ahead

Disclaimer: See prologue

A/N: I first of all want to apologise for the length of this chapter. It's really short, and the reason behind this is that i didn't want to add anything TOO exciting at this stage, i needed to write a down to earth chapter to build up the tension i want to create. I want to thank all that have reviewed, i'm so glad you like this. Now, on with the show. Chapter three!

Chapter Three: What Are Friends For?

"So pumpkin, how has college been so far?"

Lydia looked up from her plate of Delia's stodgy special stew. What on earth had possesed her to agree to a second helping? The stuff was disgusting.

"It's uh, it's been a challenge. I've met new people, lived a totally different life."

Charles nodded as he chewed on a partially cooked carrot. He looked over at Delia and grinned, slowly chewing and forcing down the now cold stew. "Delia, darling. This is...delicious!"

Delia beamed and patted Charles hand. "Oh Charles!"

Lydia sat and prodded the vegetables that floated in her stew. She wasn't in the mood for small talk, her mind was focused on one thing. Beetlejuice. She felt herself slipping, turning into the girl at Highschool with a crush on the popular guy, not that Beetlejuice was popular. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to describe how she felt about him. But when he was near her, she could feel herself heating up, when she thought about him, she would smile. This wasn't right. He was dead and she was alive, there was a word for people like herself.

Shaking her head she tried to shove her negative thoughts to the back of her mind as she concentrated on the positive ones.

Positive thought number one : She had made up with Beetlejuice and formed a semi friendly relationship.

Positive thought number two : She could be herself around him, let down her walls and be Lydia Deetz, the artist, the woman...the friend.

Positive thought number three : She had a crush on a ghost, a highly irritating ghost. So full of himself, if it were possible he would probably date himself.

Lydia smiled at the thought. Her father caught her quick smile and rubbed her small hand. "I didn't think i'd see that smile ever again."

Lydia blushed. "Dad, you make me sound so grumpy and morose. I smile...not very often but i still smile."

Her father nodded and pushed his finished plate of stew to the side. "Well, that was excellent Delia, you should cook more often."

Lydia rolled her eyes. Yep, her dad knew what buttons to push when it came to Delia.

It was too early to call on Beetlejuice again, she didn't want to think of herself becoming desperate for contact with him. What she needed to do right now was to right the wrongs she had caused earlier on and make up with the Maitland's. She knew the were protective over her, sometimes over protective, but she valued their strength and stability. Hell, they were like a second set of parents.

Then again, maybe it was best to give them time to vent, to think over what had happened and come to whatever conclusions they would come up with. Lydia needed to finish an Art assignment anyway. Maybe a little drawing right now would calm her down.

"That was great Delia, i really enjoyed that." Since coming here again, Lydia was turning into one hell of a great liar. Her smile so contagious Delia started to smile too.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it Lydia, it's better than all these takeout meals." Lydia nodded in false agreement. Anything was better than stodgy stew, even food filled with fat and preservatives. Standing up, she smiled at her father and step-mother. "I'm going to go back to my room, there's work from college that i need to finish, just call on me if you need me."

Her father smiled. "Alright Sweetheart...we're glad you decided to come back."

Lydia nodded and ascended the stairs to her room.

"I didn't realise i had so much to finish."

Lydia stopped sketching and stretched, her body ached from her being in a crouched position all afternoon trying to finish off her sketches. Life always got in the way of things. Important things. Picking up her eraser, Lydia started to crumble bits off, flinging them in every direction, right now she was bored. Extremely bored, she needed something to do. Her sketching was going nowhere, Beetlejuice was on her mind again. Again and again, that word was becoming all to familiar with Lydia Deetz.

Again, she was forced to lie back on her bed and file her thoughts away as she stared at the whirling patterns embedded in the plaster of her roof. They had an almost hypnotic feel to them.

Myabe it WAS time to go and apologise to the Maitland's, she knew Adam and Barbara and they hated conflict. That was one of the things Lydia liked about them, they were always happy, never a dull moment in the company of them both. She could only imagine what they were like when alive. Delia had thought them to be boring, but they were anything but. They were good listeners, very understandable and they never assumed. They had never judged her, but they had automatically judged Beetlejuice. She could understand why, back in the days when she was only a child he was a complete asshole. Full of himself, full of tricks and full of anger towards the living. If he could, she knew he would spend all his time haunting innocent people in their homes, cackling manically as they screamed and wet themselves.

When Lydia thought of him as that beast, he repulsed her, but it was part of him. He was made up of different sections of personalities, really he was probably a schitzophrenic. Since Lydia had came back, he had given her a glimpse of the real Beetlejuice, kind, funny and a BIT of an ass.

Lydia closed her eyes as she imagined him alive, always the joker. The soul of a party, the reason people WANTED to come to a party. As her thoughts got deeper, her body got more tired, and before she knew it Lydia was sleeping on her bed, surrounded by her art materials.

Beetlejuice sat his his chair and flicked through the paper. Oh he had the urge to turn to the Obituary page, but he shouldn't. It wouldn't do any good to cause more trouble. He was in enough deep shit as it was, never mind taking on a new family to scare. The dead were mugs, believers in life and believers in death, most of the time it was what they believed in that killed them. Flicking through the paper most of the headlines were sandworm related. The darned beasts! He hated them, if he could he would wipe out the whole race of the damned things.

"Damned sandworms."

"Never have liked them, have you?"

Beetlejuice jumped from his withered arm chair and glared at Juno, who stood smoking her never ending cigarette, the smoke clouding her grave expression.

"How'd you get in? Wait a minute...why you even here?"

Juno tapped her cigarette, the ash falling in swirls to land on his dirt incrusted floor. "I would have asked if you minded me smoking in here, but i don't think it's the cigarettes you should be worrying about, right about now."

Beetlejuice clicked his fingers, a jug of cold water drenching the cigarette in Juno's hand. "I see you haven't stopped acting the clown."

"What you wantin', Juno? I ain't in the mood for one of yer lengthy ass chewin's."

Lighting up her cigarette once again, she took a long draw from it and studied Beetlejuice. "I'm here to tell you that you have succeeded."

Beetlejuice opened his mouth to speak, but Juno's booming voice drowned out his attempts at questioning what the hell she was talking about. "Lydia Deetz isn't a child anymore, you might have noticed that. She is a young woman, with emotions...and the game you are playing right now Beetlejuice is a dangerous one. I'm here to warn you, plead with you to stop harassing that young girl and leave her to live her life without your trickery or trouble leading her astray."

"Hey, hey HEY! Lyds called on ME! I didn't force her to call on me. And i'll do what i wanna do, you ain't my mother. We're friends! Something you'd know nothin' about, Juno."

"I'm warning you, ruin her life and i'll ruin your afterlife. Leave that young woman alone, and do what you do best...nothing!"

Before Beetlejuice could produce a curse enforced reply, Juno had disapeared, the smell of smoke was the only reminder that she had actually been there.

"Bitch!"

Throwing himself back onto his arm chair, he covered his face with his arm and sighed. What the hell did that chain smoker know? The interfering cow! He'd see Lydia when she wanted to see him, be it day or night. Nothing was going to stop that!

Nothing...

TBC