Acid Test
by
Owlcroft

A/N: This takes place after the relationship had changed from friendship to romance. Also, a warning: The word rape is used in this story although none takes place.

It was nearly the end of May and Lydia's chemistry final was coming up soon. This was the one area where Beetlejuice had a lot of experience and she was not slow to take up his offer to help. As she was making notes to review later, her pencil point broke. "Get me another one, will you, Beej? From the skull." She extended her hand to the person she now thought of as her darling without taking her eyes from her notes.

Beetlejuice turned to her desk and looked through the various things in Lydia's favorite 'pencil cup', which was actually a large plastic skull with a hole in the top. There was one white stick he didn't recognize, so he pulled that one out and examined it. It was a pregnancy test. With a faint positive line. And the name Lydia Deetz was written in ink across the top.

BJ stared at the test strip, starting to breathe faster. "What?" he said, dazed, confused. "This is . . ." He stood for a few moments longer, trying to think, to figure out what to do or say, when he suddenly felt an acute pain and heard a loud crack from the middle of his chest.

"Beej?" Lydia lifted her head and turned to look at him. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he muttered, hand to his chest. Quickly, he shoved the pregnancy test in his pocket. "I, uh . . . forgot something. Back in a while." And vanished.

For nearly half an hour, Beetlejuice sat hunched over on the side of his coffin, staring at the pregnancy test, bewildered and hurt. His heart had physically cracked, but he could mostly ignore that pain. It was the other pain, the emotional pain that was crippling him, preventing him from even thinking. There was no way he could sort out what he was feeling; all he knew was that it was bad, confusing and bad, and it hurt. Lydia . . . his Lyds . . . was pregnant, so what did that mean about what she'd told him? That none of it was true? She didn't really . . . feel that way about him but about someone else? Or was she just curious and experimenting with sex? Or . . . there was a third option, one that he didn't even want to consider. But had to. They all hurt. Everything hurt. But finally, he had to go back, to get answers to questions he didn't want to ask.

"Lyds," he muttered at the mirror, "let me through."

She did, but with a questioning look. "Are you all right, Beej? You didn't sound . . . okay when you left."

"I can't . . . Lydia, tell me." He tried to remain as calm as he could, and spoke in a quiet, restrained voice. "Tell me the truth. Were you . . . forced?"

"What?" said Lydia, confused. "BJ, I don't know what you mean."

He took hold of her shoulders, not ungently. "Did he . . . force you? If he did, I'll find him. I'll . . . kill him. Slowly." He stood and breathed heavily, then dropped his grip on her shoulders and said, "But I would have known. I could tell . . . You couldn't hide that from me. But . . ." He took hold of her hands and held them between his own. "I need you to tell me. Was it that or did you . . . want him? Did you want to . . . to find out what it was like? Just tell me the truth! No matter what, I'll take care of it, of you. Just tell me what happened!" His brittle control was starting to slip, but he fought to maintain it.

"Beej, I really don't know what you mean. What's wrong?"

"Lyds, please, I know what's going on and I'm not blaming you. But I need you to tell me what you want me to do – how I can help you." He took a deep breath and started to embrace her, then abruptly pulled back. "Just tell me, please, what you want, what you need, and I'll do it. But first I have to know if you . . . were willing or not!"

By this time Lydia was convinced that there had been a major misunderstanding, but she was no closer to figuring out what it was. "BJ, honestly, I appreciate all you're saying, but I don't really know what it is we're talking about." She came closer toward him, halfway extending her arms in a try for a hug herself, but he turned away from her.

Beetlejuice couldn't think of another way of saying it, so he just blurted it out. "Were you raped?" He couldn't look at her as he asked, so he missed her expression of absolute astonishment. "Just tell me! If that's how you . . . became pregnant, it's not your fault!" The next sentence was said so quietly she barely heard it. "Please just tell me."

She finally got her voice back and said, "Oh, Beej, no. I wasn't; I'm not – " was all she could get out before he had wrapped her in his arms.

"Then it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, you hear me?" He was holding her carefully, but tightly, caressing her back and cradling her head against his shoulder. "It doesn't matter how or why. All that matters is you and if you decide to keep the baby, it'll be yours and I'll . . . I'll care for it as if it were mine. I'll do anything for you, be a father to your baby. Whatever you want. Anything you want!" He released his grip on her to kneel before her and rest his head against her abdomen. "I will . . . I will feel for your baby what I feel for you, because it's your baby. I will take care of you both as mine. You will both be mine." He looked up at her finally, only to see she had tears in her eyes.

"Oh, my darling Beej." She sniffed, cleared her throat, then tugged at him to get him to stand up. "You found that pregnancy test. Where was it?" She suddenly answered her own question. "In the skull, wasn't it? I threw the pencil away and kept the pregnancy test. I am an idiot!"

"No, you're not. You're . . . my Lyds. Still my Lyds. Always my Lyds." He looked at her sadly, pleadingly. "You have to let me help. Anything, babes, whatever you need, whatever you want me to do – "

Lydia grabbed him by the lapels and shook him gently. "I am not pregnant!" She removed her hands to swipe at her eyes, then threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "I never was pregnant; I couldn't be because there's only one way to get pregnant and I have never done that!"

Beetlejuice was still and silent for a few seconds then slowly embraced her. "But . . . that . . .

"It was for my sex ed class. It was to teach us how to do it right if we ever needed to. Oh, Beej, I can't even imagine – " She kissed him, fervently. "You still loved me. You still wanted to help me, to take care of me even when you thought . . . thought that I had cheated on you. Oh, I do love you so much!"

His arms tightened around her as he said, "It was . . . it's positive. I saw it, babes. I mean, I believe you. I do, really! But it's positive." He looked at her with hope and trust.

Lydia smiled at him and caressed his cheek. "It's days old, BJ. It dried out and that's an evaporation line. I had to let it dry out so I could see that line and know it's not a real positive. Oh, Beej, I am so sorry."

He pulled her as close to him as he could and snugged her head under his chin, breathing unevenly. "Oh, babes. . . I didn't know . . . But it's okay. It's . . . really, it's okay. I just couldn't – " He tried to laugh, but it wasn't a very good attempt. "I was so . . . I had these feelings and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't understand what was happening or what . . . how to . . . help you. But it's all right now. Everything is all right now. Oh, Lyds, it was . . . it hurt so bad! It broke my heart, you know. It still really hurts."

"Oh!" She was horrified. "Was that the noise I heard? Oh, no! Are you . . . are you all right? Should you sit down? What should we do? How can we fix it?"

Beetlejuice did laugh then, not maniacally, but it was genuine. "Lyds, slow down." He pulled back a little so he could see her face and smiled at her. "Just give me your hand." He took the one she offered and inserted it between his shirt buttons to rest over his heart. "Now think about it healing, babes. Think about . . . what you feel, for me, and think about the crack healing."

She did, with his hand resting over hers. First she felt a warmth and power that she recognized as his juice, and she tried to focus on his heart until she eventually perceived an image of it – striped red and pink, with her name written on it in gold script. She sent that image all her love and hopes and desires and could feel his juice forcing her emotions into his heart until he pulled her hand up to his mouth to kiss it.

"All done," he told her with a smile. "Good job, Doctor Deetz."

Lydia shook her head at him. "I still just can't tell you how sorry I am. You must have been . . ."

"Hurt? Mad? Upset? Hurt? Confused? Sad? Hurt? All of the above?" He took in a deep breath and released it slowly. "I don't know exactly. The hurt part, yeah, that I recognize, but I didn't understand . . . I don't even have names for some of what I felt, what I still feel. But it's okay now. I'm okay, and you're okay, and we're okay. Okay?"

"But I broke your poor heart." Lydia patted his chest tenderly.

Beetlejuice cocked his head at that. "Well, it's actually not my heart now." He kissed her and held her close. "It's yours. I just carry it around for you."