--
Still eyeing Betelguese suspiciously, Lydia crawled out of her bed and headed for the door. Realizing he had not left the hallway looking quite presentable, Betelgeuse glided over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, attempting to lead her to a chair.
"C'mon now, lets chat, right? It's been a long time, you've clearly changed, I wanna hear aaaaaall about your life. Got any boyfriends? You realize once you've gone ghost, there's no going back."
Lydia shook her head and pulled away from him. "Ugh. In a minute, I need to go to the bathroom." She opened the door to the hallway and sucked in a quick gasp of surprise at the transformation her parent's house had made in the short while she had passed out. Where once everything was meticulously placed and carefully cleaned regularly was now something that could be described as no less than chaos. Spinning to face him she glared for a few seconds as he cringed.
"Its just habit! I can fix it!" He grabbed her shoulder.
"Betelguese!"
He swore fluently and clenched his eyes shut as the world spun briefly and he was dragged back into his prison. Shit. How the hell was he supposed to get out this time? She sure as hell wouldn't fall for the same tricks twice. Once he finally stopped swearing he opened his eyes.
To his great surprise, Lydia still stood before him, though her expression had changed to something nearly unreadable.
"What the hell is going on? Where am I? Why didn't you go back?"
Looking at her with an expression of surprise that nearly paralleled her own, he shrugged. "Damned if I know what's going on. I did go back, and you came with me."
"What?" She looked a little lost and started to examine the room they stood in. It was unnervingly familiar. "Why would I come back with you? Am I really in…? Oh my god."
Betelgeuse shrugged, trying to think of every bizarre loophole he knew of that would create the anomaly of a living girl in the land of the dead. It wasn't going so well, all the loopholes he bothered to memorize usually dealt with things going the other direction. He leaned close to her and breathed in deeply, causing her to recoil with a look of disgust finally banishing the unreadable bewilderment. "Mmm, you still smell alive, that's for sure. Dunno why you're here… Unless…"
"Unless what!?"
"You still have the ring."
What little color that had graced Lydia's delicate features abandoned her instantly. She began to wring her hands and refused to look directly at the disgusting poltergeist.
"What would that matter?" She all but squeaked.
"It would mean we're still engaged, babes."
"That's ridiculous, why would I keep your ring?"
"I dunno. Why would you keep it?" He circled around her with a serpentine grace; she was so busy avoiding looking at him that she jumped nearly a mile when she felt his cool fingers against her neck.
Betelguese grinned impishly as he found what he was looking for. He pulled the delicate silver chain out of her shirt and settled himself in front of her, examining his ring as he let it dangle between their faces.
He repeated himself, his gravelly voice sounding as if it had been slicked over with oil. "Why would you keep it, Lyds?"
Lydia refused to look up, color was beginning to return to her face in the most embarrassing way possible.
--
