Beetlejuice's sleep continued for three weeks. Lydia took Juno's words to heart and had staid the whole three weeks in the Neitherworld, thoroughly stocking out beforehand on the day of the 'accident'. She understood that the quake had remained local and no inhabitants of the Neitherworld suffered because of it. Nobody had even noticed it.
And how did Lydia know such information? To pass the non-adventurous time she walked all around on her own or with Kevin, watching the torrent of the afterlives. She also found the library and checked out 'The Records of the Insufferable Existences', volumes describing the main pranks of all the Juice Wielders of the Neitherworld since the beginning of Time. There was quite a few to say the least. Every wielder usually had one volume, Beetlejuice had two already.
'No wonder he was talking about retirement, how long can you pull jokes on the crowd? But if he stops what will he do the next millennium?'
Lydia, Kevin, Jacques and even Ginger took shifts in staying in BJ's bedroom, so there would be at least one of them present at all times. Lydia's sleeping sofa was also staying there. Lydia and Kevin have been spending quite a bit of time there, reading about the 'heroic deeds' of the previous Beetlejuices. Lydia was fascinated about the evolving process of the pranksters with changing of eras. They were also engrossed with a little project, a present to Beetlejuice of sorts.
She checked on Beetlejuice every night she went to sleep, tucking him in and brushing strands of hair from his forehead if he had moved too much the previous day. Every time she begged him to wake up already, but at the same time she questioned herself about the change it would bring for her. This time he will remember her and their time they had together, but also the pain she inflicted upon his heart.
The awakening of 'the beast' was announced actually by a mighty yawn that sounded more like a roar. Lydia fell from her armchair in the living room, not because of fright, but because the chair disappeared. Looking around she discovered that was not the only change: the furniture was changing shapes and colors to gloomier ones. The contrast was not vividly noticeable, but Lydia instantly recognized the style ala E. A. Poe.
"I don't like it," Kevin declared, examining the new table.
"Hopefully, it won't be as bad as it seems," Lydia muttered, going upstairs. She was surprised by the transformation. Did it mean that he had changed too? She finally reached the bedroom and froze on the doorstep.
"Surprised to see you here, babes."
If Lydia had been Beetlejuice she could've bet that words 'déjà vu' would've fallen onto her head right at that moment. He did look differently – the shirt was vine red and the black stripes looked a bit larger than the white ones with silver trim along their sides; the fair hair now was brightly white and he was a lot thinner, the face features seemed to be slightly different too, Lydia couldn't place the change though. But then it dawned to her – he looked older, not much, but ten years at least.
"I promised to stay, so I did," Lydia stated with resolution, feeling that she should stay her ground right now.
"When do you leave?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Haven't we had this conversation before?"
"But you still haven't answered. As I told you before, BJ, I don't want to leave. But only say a word and I'll leave and won't ever see the Neitherworld ever again. Was it what you said back then?"
"Why can't you decide on your own, Lyds?" Beetlejuice asked, learning against his coffin nonchalantly, as if the conversation was about a completely trivial matter.
"What do you mean?"
"You know that you can't stay here permanently so why waste your only life as a breather in the world of the dead? Go on, marry, have kids and whatever else you want," he replied bitterly.
Lydia was glad that he had finally showed some emotion, even if it was bitterness towards her. "I will, if you do the same."
"What?!!"
"You have Kevin, who can be considered your son, but I won't aloud you to remain alone for the rest of your afterlife."
"Have you gone nuts while I was not looking?! I can't m-m-m-marry! This is against everything I exist for!"
"Your problem. I am planning to visit the Neitherworld till the day of your wedding. Can share some dating tips if you want."
"But it can take centuries," he remarked with a smirk, happy to find a loop hole.
"Not with my active assistance. I am an active witness that you are not always an arse and can be rather charming. We'll find you a fiancée in no time."
"Nonsense!" Beetlejuice spat, turning his back to her. "I can't…"
Lydia knew she was acting like a fool, talking crap about marrying him off and everything. It was indeed her wish to not leave him alone, but she was also avoiding the real problem. "Is it because of your… disposition towards me?" she asked cautiously, not knowing his reaction to the topic.
"Because my heart beats for the first time in my life."
Lydia couldn't ask for any elaboration on that mysterious phrase since Kevin appeared in the hall, and Beetlejuice was obviously happy for distraction. Kevin stated his negative opinion about the new decorum and they went to redecorate the house to practice Kevin's juice usage.
……………
Several days later, Kevin departed on another field trip with Sappy Face Ghouls and Lydia saw her chance. She found him in the one of the rooms, going through a leather bound book and, most importantly, smiling.
"We need to have a serious talk, Beej," Lydia stated, appearing behind him.
He snapped the book shut and tried to hide it behind a pillow, but Lydia has already seen its contents. It was not actually a book, but a photo album of all the photos that were found in the closed closet. Lydia and Kevin organized it chronologically and glued them in an album. Lydia wished she could see her old friend's reaction to the present, the smile just a minute before was quite enough too.
"Like a serious-serious talk? You know I hate it."
"No, just a talk with no topic avoiding." Beetlejuice looked at his shoes, deep in thought. "I like your new shoes, by the way," she complemented, referring to the boots that now were with rectangular ends instead of pointed ones.
"Buttering up much?"
"Is it working?" It obviously did, because the next moment they were already on the roof. "Here?"
"Why not?" Beetlejuice asked in return, lying down onto the slope of the roof.
Lydia soon joined him, glancing at the sky, but the briefness of the glance turned into a full gaze when she realized how beautiful the sky was that night.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Beetlejuice asked, breaking Lydia's moment of stargazing.
"Juno came-"
"When did that old hag manage to put her nose into my business?!"
"The other day…"
"So?"
"She told me a lot of interesting things, she seems to know you very well."
"It's her job. She believes herself to be my leach holder." A blue leach appeared around Beetlejuice's neck and he ripped it off as it was the cutest thing in the world. "She just keeps my records, but thinks she can control me, hah! As if anybody can!"
"I wanted to ask you why you had chosen me, another girl."
"Another girl?"
"She told me about Alice."
"She had better kept her gap shut, in her neck too. She had no right to tell you about that!"
"She told me about it in a form of a warning."
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask about the reason. They both knew the context in which the warning was issued.
"So why me? Why watch me for several years before approaching? Why paying six hundred years for some ten years of our possible companionship?"
"Why do you want to know?"
Lydia wanted to scream already. For some reason the literate Beetlejuice was covering up this mystery pretty heavily. "Because I want to know you better. Because I want to understand my destiny."
"Your destiny?"
"I was not some accidental choice. One the whole planet you noticed me. Knowing all the disadvantages, you'd still chosen a girl to be your best friend. I feel that I was somehow meant to come here, to upset the balance of the worlds of the alive and the dead, to befriend everyone and help you with your pranks. I don't really understand why I want to know so much. And before you say anything, it doesn't have anything to do with Kevin. You explained why you chose him, by the way. Why don't do the same about me?"
"I don't remember actually."
"I don't believe you. You remember about Alice and that was more than two hundred years ago."
Beetlejuice signed and stared intently into the sky. "You were fascinated with spiders," he uttered after a pause.
"Huh?"
"What five-year-old could play with spiders instead of screaming, crying and running to mummy? And you also liked bugs, and were the first to step into a haunted house attraction or a dark cave. That's why nobody liked you and you were always alone. So…"
"And you like the same things and were also alone," Lydia finished for him with a small smile on her lips. It was so simple after all – they were just too much alike to exist separately.
"Think whatever you want, I don't find it anything of importance," BJ grunted, closing the topic.
"Juno also told me something else…"
"Looks like she was very talkative for someone who is prohibited to tell breathers anything."
"Well, it was nothing exact, just that everyone here atones for something done in his or her life."
"So?"
"I understand that death is personal and everything, but could you… tell me about your misdeed?"
"I don't remember. And before you say anything, it happened 687 years ago, so I have all the right not to remember," Beetlejuice declared pompously.
"But you do remember the exact date."
"It was mass murder, satisfied?"
Lydia gasped. "And how did it happen?"
"So now you are twisted too, besides your love for everything gross? Taking pleasure in such stories?"
"It is alright if you don't want to relive that tragedy again," Lydia only said, sensing his discomfort, and not because of her twisteness.
"You really want to know?"
"I won't judge you, if you are afraid of that."
"Well… You do know the story of Peter Pan, right?"
"The one written by John Barrie?"
"He did write it, but not without inspiration which he received from a legend about the Children's Island. It all happened somewhere in the end of the Middle Ages. Another plague broke loose and it was decided to bring children to an island for them to survive the plague. The kids were from five to ten years old. Girls and boys were brought to separate islands (where was the point in that if they wanted them to survive?) and left there. The plague stepped back, but nobody picked the kids up. Of course, third of them had died by the end of the epidemic not being able to survive on their own or being too weak. The rest of the boys survived and were living on their island rather peacefully and excitingly. Until babies started appearing on the shores. Sometimes babies, sometimes infants or two year olds. After some watching the children found out that the others were brought by fishermen and from the adults' conversations was understood that those brought were illegitimate children of the nobility, the mothers obviously with peasant origin.
It had continued for many years. One day there was a shipwreck near the island and several fishermen were washed ashore. They marveled at how well mere children (the oldest were twenty already) managed to built themselves a life on an isolated island. They told them about civilization and big cities and said they could return, nobody would say anything bad to them. Well, after some time the fishermen made themselves a boat and left. The boys continued to leave on the island, but the seeds of escape were planted. So sometime later, they built a boat and set sail. By some Fate they ended on the girls' island. To make long story short, the boys decided to live together with girls (Nature call and stuff), so they built another boat and sailed to the continent. Everybody but one boy. He didn't want to grow up or to go to any big cities, he liked to live in their greenhouse and have fun. So he returned to the boys' island and lived there, taking care of the cradles that appeared on the shore from time to time.
The island was not magical, so sooner or later everybody grew up. Giving up to pleads of the others, they set sail to one of the towns. Basically, that boy, a man of thirty at that time, was recognized by his mother by an usual birthmark on his neck. She told him that in reality he was the son of the Duke. The Duke also had legitimate sons, about the same age and a grandchild from the one of son's marriage to a daughter of a very rich feudal lord. So everything was perfect in the life of the Duke.
But the man was enraged finding out that it was the same Duke's order to bring the babies to the island, depriving them of mothers' care and be practically thrown out like some garbage. Moreover, the Duke had no trouble in the world, and all other children had to suffer to survive with no help from adults. Yes, it was all fun and challenge, but still, the kids were sent to death and not a painless one.
He came to the Duke's castle and killed the Duke and his sons, sparing the woman and the child only when she promised to bring the baby up properly. He was executed the next morning. That's the whole story."
"Did the man have a name?"
"It was Peter."
"Reality is cruel. I really pity all those kids."
"That's all?!"
"I said I wouldn't pass any judgment. Revenge and especially murder doesn't solve anything, but in the Middle Ages… who knows? The story explains a lot about you however."
"How so?"
"Childish behavior, befriending children instead of adults, not liking to be clean, never being serious-"
"Hey! What happened to no judgment?!" Beetlejuice exclaimed deeply offended, but obviously faking it.
"I was just stating the obvious."
There were a sound of a POP and someone stumbling over the roof top. "Hey, what are you guys doing there?" came Kevin's voice from the darkness.
"Stargazing," Beetlejuice responded. "And do you find it fun to appear on non-level surface knowing next to nothing about how to do it? Kids these days…"
Lydia giggled, hearing the last remark. Why did he always make her laugh at the most inconvenient times? Not that she minded, she laughed so rarely in the world of the living. She needed to tell him something crucially important, but the conversation turned to laughs and jokes once again.
…………
A month later Lydia was going through some bank documents in her flat in New York, but her mind was only party with the figures she had to analyze for finishing her affairs with the financial institution. She still hasn't told Beetlejuice about her… condition. She just couldn't pick the time and the place. She loved Kevin, but wanted privacy in that one matter which was supposed to be quite delicate. For her at least. Was it the same for Beetlejuice when he kept his true feelings from her? This constant indecision.
"What if it still works? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!" To her astonishment the Ghost with the Most actually appeared, floating above her table with the leather bound book on his knees. He was so engrossed in it, that he didn't notice the change of his surroundings. "Do you like it?"
The book was instantly snapped shut, but this time there was nowhere to hide it. "Errrrr, neatness, you know, I hate it."
"Sorry then. Kevin and I thought it would be easier to browse through the photos this way. Do you remember now?"
"Most things…"
The conversation seemed to reach a dead end so Lydia decided to gather her guts and say it already. "I want to tell you something."
"Why call me here?"
'So he isn't surprised that I can still do it, he must've known it all along.' "I wanted to tell you in private."
"So?"
Lydia took a deep breath and blurted, "I have terminal cancer. I have only about eleven months to live."
"Are you sure that the docs aren't simply seeing my juice? I am rather terminal," he added with a smirk.
'Of all possible reactions…' Lydia thought with disbelief. 'But it could make sense.' "Can you tell where it is in my body?"
"Hm…" Beetlejuice flew down, coming closer. He touched her throat with his index finger and moved it downwards against her neck, presumably tracing the way the juice moved. The collarbone, right breast, lingered for some time on the left breast's nipple, went lower to the end of the ribcage, then towards her spine and back until the red finger's end didn't rest in her belly button. "Here."
"That's not it then," Lydia breathed out with slight regret. The wish to live was still strong within her.
"Should I take it out, so it won't cause you any further damage?"
"Can it?"
"Who knows?" Beetlejuice asked with a shrug, looking completely calm about the grave situation.
"This time I will be a good girl and open my mouth," Lydia proclaimed, doing just that.
"That won't be enough this time, babes," BJ drawled, his face nearing her even more, his glance longing and restricting at the same time.
"Do it, I don't mind," Lydia consented, putting two and two together in his veiled phrase. Not only she didn't mind, but she wanted to know the feeling of now 'full' Beetlejuice kissing her. Will there be any of his feelings? Or will it be only a transfusion?
It happened to be neither. Beetlejuice's lips were not as hot as the previous time, but not icily cold either. They were warm, but not as warm as ones of a living person. Indeed he was mostly sucking out the juice, but his lips lingered on hers for several moments after the juice ball changed its host. The Ghost with the Most was hard to understand when he was not telling jokes.
"You are dying," Beetlejuice stated, but his certainly came from the concrete knowledge – he saw it all in her body with his own 'eyes'. "Will you stay in the Neitherworld till… till Death do us part?"
"Must It?"
…………………
The Administration of the Neitherworld had another busy day. Some was going on in the Outerworld and new corpses were piling out in the Waiting Room like raindrops in autumn.
"Next!" Juno barked, putting some papers onto the pile on her table. She wondered briefly when the said pile would fall and who she would punish with cleaning it up.
The door opened with a characteristic crack and the visitor flopped down onto the chair.
"What are you doing here? And I didn't hear any disruption in the queue for that matter."
"Waiting, you know I hate it. But I did, for four months."
"I am surprised. You must want something very special to play by the rules first time in your afterlife."
"Lydia is dying."
"Pity. She was a wonderful woman."
"Don't you dare speak about her in the past tense!" Beetlejuice roared, losing his nonchalant composure.
"Well, she'll go straight to Heaven."
"How do you know?"
"I checked. It's my job to keep you on the brick of sanity."
"Well, she wishes not to. She wants to stay here, with me, I mean, with us."
"That's unprecendent. For a Juice Wielder to be wrapped around someone's finger so tightly. You need to pay a LOT for her to come here after her physical death, and even after that she'd stay around not more than for four hundred years and then moves on. She is clean, no Death Sins on her record."
"There is another way, and free for me too."
"Oh no, you wouldn't dare," Juno whispered, feeling as fear was creeping up her spine. She knew that he could and would dare to go through with that crazy plan of his. He always did.
Beetlejuice pulled at his jacket's lapels to show her his ribcage where a heart was beating. "See this?! Nothing in both worlds can take my Lydia away from me! I can threaten and blackmail or just destroy this world just for the sake of it. And you know that I am not bluffing, Juno. Do you really want this or will just shut your gaps and sign the papers?"
"But you need her consent and there are other procedures and a lot of papers…" Juno mumbled, moved by his display. No ghoul had a beating heart. It stood still even if it was present. It could be animated, but not constantly. What did it mean?
Beetlejuice threw several papers onto Juno's table. "Here's her consent, blood and everything."
"You knew beforehand?!"
"You must know the rules to break them. Unfortunately, this time I am doing everything by the book." Several books fell onto his head, but he ignored them.
"She must have gone crazy to agree to this."
"Maybe. Just said something about liking spiders, but loving beetles."
With that Beetlejuice departed. June cursed in several languages and took several inhalings to calm herself somewhat. She pushed the offending pile of papers onto the floor in search of the telephone. On days like these she reminded herself that they were not in Hell yet, but it will surely break loose when she informs her superiors that the current Juice Wielder decided to get married.