Plot: Saskia Weathers, twenty-two years old and almost totally alone, has pretty much abandoned living since she found out her Stage 4 cancer is too far gone and she's just killing time until she dies. But when a flyer comes offering guidance to the other side and she reads the three-time name out loud, it turns out it's not the joke she thought it was. Betelgeuse soon recognizes that they have a goal in common – being alive. Well, there is a way. But saying "I do" and gaining partial immortality (aka no ageing and no illnesses) is only the start. Betelgeuse may be alive now, but he's still pretty powerful…
Disclaimer: I don't own Beetlejuice, character or medium, any incarnation, or anything else you recognize. It's mostly movieverse (most of the background and spelling his name like the star instead of phonetically) and musicalverse (getting married brings Betelgeuse back to life as well as granting him his freedom), with maybe a little animated inspiration. I do own Saskia. I also have several headcanons that will make it into the mix, so anything that wasn't in any of the incarnations of the character are mine. Also, trigger warning: Saskia will be talking a bit about how she is terminally ill, nothing gross, but if you have any trauma around terminal illness, you may want to skip over this first chapter.
"Seen it. Seen it. Seen it…"
Weren't there any cartoons worth watching that I hadn't binged on already? Ugh! I threw the stupid remote on the floor, flopping back on the sofa. I knew what Mama would say if she saw me like this when I lived with them: "Saskia, honey, moping around like that won't help anything. Now I have to run to the store, so be an angel and watch your brothers for me." Yeah, like she ever watched them when I was home and not at school. If it wasn't "watch your brothers", it was "make your brothers a snack" or "put your brothers to bed". She only stopped doing it when I was seventeen, and that was because I'd saved enough revenue from my YouTube videos to move out and stop being Cody and Noah's built-in babysitter (I'd just graduated from high school, so I was almost eighteen and apart from Mama trying to talk me into staying, no one stopped me). Even when I was five, Mama would ask me to keep an eye on Noah in the playpen (at the crawling stage) and make sure Cody didn't do anything dumb (he was three at the time). I didn't blame them – well, I didn't once I realized that it was Mama making me do her job and the boys couldn't help being kids – but that didn't mean I didn't take it out on them once in a while.
Daddy wasn't much better. He was mostly away from the house with his full-time work, so I hardly ever saw him, and he was more the fun parent, so he didn't want to hear that Mama was dumping the boys on me. To be honest, I barely spoke to him. I didn't know what they'd done once I moved out. Maybe they just put Cody in charge – he was almost sixteen by the time I left, anyway. Five years later, and now my life was over. It was almost funny, dying at twenty-two, if it didn't feel so tragic.
Okay, yeah. I had cancer. Skin cancer. I thought the melanoma was a mosquito bite at first. It took a while for me to notice it was growing, or, in fact, that it wasn't going away. It was only when I started getting more symptoms like bleeding when I went to the doctor and got all the tests. By the time it was caught and the mole was removed, it was already stage 4 and had spread too far. I didn't really have enough friends around to help me (except for Katrina, a drinking buddy I'd met at a club when I was twenty who visited me in hospital) and I'd barely spoken to Mama and Daddy since I moved out. The boys visited, but Noah couldn't do much when he was still finishing high school back in Montgomery and Cody only managed to get down south to Darien when he was on semester break (he was in his first year at Brown when I was diagnosed), so I was mostly on my own. I knew Noah had passed on the message to my parents that I had cancer, but all I'd received from them was a Get Well Soon card, so clearly they didn't know how serious it was. To be fair, I'd told the boys it was Stage 4, but I'd been unable to tell them the worst news. They didn't know that they wouldn't have an elder sister for much longer. I didn't have that many friends – I had a habit of falling back on snarking when I met new people because it made me feel less awkward, and even though I knew it turned people off, I couldn't seem to stop. I didn't care. I was used to my own company, and just having one or two friends was enough. When I wasn't earning money via my videos, I had a part-time job at a coffee shop down the road, so I at least had some social interactions there, but I couldn't call any of my coworkers friends, just people I got on with all right and could talk to, sort of like when I was at school – I got on okay with most people and had a group I hung out with and people I teamed up with for group projects, but I wasn't particularly close with any of them. Same thing with my coworkers. That is, ex-coworkers. They weren't my coworkers anymore. Once my energy went down the pan, I quit. It wasn't like I'd get enough energy to waitress and wash up again before I died. I'd used up all my sick leave while I was in hospital, anyway.
I was back in my crappy apartment now. After all of the chemo and all of the radiotherapy and all of the attempts to get me into remission, the doctors had been clear. The cancer had spread too far. There was nothing more they could do for me. I'd have a few more months of living independently, and then a few more weeks when I'd have to go into hospice care to live out my final days. Among all those other people mouldering away. I'd probably be so doped up on painkillers that I wouldn't even remember I was dying – I probably wouldn't even notice, whether I was conscious or not. And who knew what would happen after that? Nothing? A fade to black? Hell? I wasn't an awful person, but I'd definitely broken a few Christian commandments, especially 1 and 4 when I stopped going to church the second I could, 5 because I didn't respect my parents after the way they'd made me parent my brothers, and 9 because although I didn't lie much, I certainly had once or twice. Oh, and I'd probably been a hypocrite sometimes, so that was the third commandment covered, too. If I'd actually believed in Baptist Christianity, the way I'd been raised, I would have been screwed. As it was, I was trying to decide if I was going to Hell or if death was just a black hole.
As if that wasn't enough, I felt like my life was a cruel joke. Guess what my star sign was? Yep, the crab (my birthday was near the end of June, and it was September now – there was no way I'd survive that long). It was like the universe was laughing at me, saying Cancer could start my life – and end it.
So here I was for the moment, watching cartoons. I mean, if I was gonna die in a few months anyway, what was the point of doing anything? I usually spent my feeling-sad down time dancing to music (and sometimes singing, but my singing voice was seriously cringey) or curling up with cartoons. Sometimes making an extra video would help. I didn't need to make money off my YouTube channel anymore, and making a vlog or reaction video now would just be depressing. I didn't feel like putting on Spotify to dance. I didn't want to see anyone, either. I just didn't see the point of those things anymore. This afternoon least of all.
I didn't have the emotional energy for any of it, and I often didn't have enough physical energy, either. I tried watching movies, but those made me even more depressed, because so many of the good ones ended happily, even though they were either cynical comedy or psychological horror (I was a big fan of the Saw franchise, or even movies where the 'good' characters messed with everyone's minds – if you wanted me to talk Disney, I would always tell you that my favourite hero was Aladdin since he eventually won by playing mind games and manipulation). I thought about watching reality shows, too, which I liked because of all the mind games. But all these adults actually going out and doing something made me depressed. I stuck to the Total Drama seriesafter that, the cartoon parody of reality TV. At least that wasn't real and all the contestants were younger than me.
Besides, cartoons were entertaining and I didn't have to think too hard about them. So I'd been spending the whole week wearing pyjamas and binge-watching all those old late 90s cartoons that Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon thought were so cool. Well, I'd already exhausted all the good adult cartoons, like The Simpsons and Futurama and the bad ones too, like American Dad. I'd even watched every episode of South Park twice in the last week, since it was my favourite cartoon. Then I got on to the kiddie ones – I mean, some of them were well-written or funny, even at my age. I even got all excited when The Powerpuff Girls referenced South Park in one episode – and yeah, that was one of the actually good ones, with lots of comedy and violence from five-year-olds who were smarter than most ten-year-olds. Either way, watching cartoons was better on dwelling on what I never got to do. Like I was gonna die a virgin (I'd hooked up with one or two guys, but the only thing I'd ever finished from was fingers). I'd never have a serious boyfriend or girlfriend (The same reason I didn't have many friends, I thought – they couldn't take the snark). I'd never get to travel outside of the United States. I'd never scrape the money together to go to college (if I hadn't been so desperate to move out or had more cash, I could have been finishing off my Media Studies BA at Berkeley right now, clear across the country – at least, if I'd cared enough when I found out I wouldn't ever get a chance to use it). The biggest thing I'd ever accomplished was getting terminally ill and having people feel sorry for you because you were too ill to ever go into remission.
But nope, Saskia Ruth Weathers was going to end up as nothing but a gravestone with a bunch of buried ashes before she made it to twenty-three. I'd already planned to donate what healthy organs were left once the cancer had ravaged them and have the rest of me cremated, but I still wanted a headstone, even if there was nothing left of me. Not that it would get many visits, but my brothers had promised they'd take care of my funeral, money no option. I just requested that it wasn't religious and if there had to be music, that it be something I would have liked when I was alive, preferably mindless pop. Maybe something from musical theatre, provided it was a jukebox musical – Rock of Ages had decent music, or I could settle for something from Mamma Mia or Moulin Rouge, like that remix of that song about diamonds was made pretty pop-like with the Material Girl reference in there, too. Maybe something Britney Spears or the Spice Girls had done. None of that got too serious. I mean, I could veto the Spice Girls' heavier or moodier stuff like Naked and Too Much, but I'd kind of like my coffin to slide away to the tune of Spice Up Your Life – yeah, a final middle finger to everyone wanting me to be miserable. I'd been miserable, so I was going to make like being dead was going to be fun.
The truth was, I was scared. Scared shitless of dying. Maybe if I'd been old and losing my teeth and hair and mind (somehow, I'd managed to be one of that tiny percentage of people who didn't have hair loss – my hair was maybe not as thick as it had been, but still) but even then, I just plain didn't want to die. It wasn't that I had a great life. I mean, I liked the freedom of living alone, I managed okay, and I was getting Internet famous, starting to really develop a following for my series (I did cartoon reactions because I liked cartoons and they got views – there were tonnes of movie reactors online but only a handful of cartoon reactors if that, and apart from that, it was just easy update vlogs), but it wasn't an awesome life with dozens of friends (I only really had Katrina, and even then, it was only because she tried to be friendly with me instead of ignoring me when I heard her ordering a cocktail at the bar and muttered "Wimp," for not drinking straight like I did). I didn't need dozens of friends. But that said, I was afraid of death.
In fact, I was more afraid of death than I was of having no personality. Yeah, that was my other fear. I knew being rude wasn't the way to make people like you, but my snarkiness was…well, a me thing. It was the way I showed I was tough, that no one could bring me down. I wasn't ever a bully, I never picked on anyone in particular, but everyone got my sarcastic snarky tongue sometimes. Even teachers, although I toned it down a little for them (and I didn't like school much – I passed, but like I said, I didn't go to college) just so I didn't get into trouble. Mama barely noticed when I did it to her, considering I almost never managed to get a word out before I was being told to watch the boys. Daddy would let me have it if I did it to him, so I'd learned to hold off on the snark if I really had to. I obviously couldn't do it in the hospital or to my GP when I first got diagnosed (although I had about a thousand jokes about how chemo was literally making myself ill to get better). But I didn't often bother to try. Who needed appreciation from a bunch of suckers you knew, as opposed to a bunch of strangers (known as followers)? Not me, that was for sure. It was better than being invisible. I felt like snark was all there was to me, and if I gave that up, I'd just be a blank slate. That was scary, almost as frightening as death was. But nothing could scare me more than the fact that I was going to die young.
Now I wasn't even enjoying the cartoons. I'd watched all the ones worth watching.
However, when I finally stirred myself to check the mail, I actually found something in my mailbox. It looked like junk mail, at first, but then I read what it actually said.
Stressed about death? Having trouble adjusting? Not getting your answers from the handbook? Want answers from someone with experience? Never fear, help is at hand.
Call BETELGEUSE BETELGEUSE BETELGEUSE
Certified death coach. Free possession with every call!
The flyer looked like a joke, but I couldn't figure out who would have sent it. I'd never told anyone that I was terrified of death, and besides, no one knew I was going to die soon. Only the doctor who was treating me and maybe some nurses who heard me turning into a sobbing mess, but they wouldn't have made a joke like this. They wouldn't have time, anyway. My brothers were the only other ones who knew where I lived (well, and Katrina, but I knew she wouldn't have done this) and I hadn't told them that I was dying.
And besides, what kind of a name was Betelgeuse? I'd done a bit of astronomy stuff back in high school because I'd been interested in astrology and that meant I started looking up stars and constellations (which was how I also knew that I was ill with a disease that was named because it stretched out like crab pincers). So I knew it was a particularly bright star in Orion – I couldn't remember if it was the brightest or second-brightest – and at least I knew how to pronounce it. Like a bug and a beverage. It wasn't exactly rocket science, but I knew people who thought it was meant to sound like a bug and multiple men who tried to blow up the British government and got an annual event out of it (It wasn't something we did here, but apparently the British celebrated the death of Guy Fawkes every year – talk about depressing).
I was pretty sure the flyer had to be a joke, though. Maybe it was just a coincidence it was suggesting help for people who were stressed about dying. There was no actual contact information, even though it said to call. That's how I knew it had to be fake.
"Call who?" I muttered to myself as I headed back into my apartment and closed the door. "A stupid star? Three stupid stars who are all called Betelgeuse?"
The atmosphere in the room changed the second I finished speaking. There was this aura in the air…some kind of excitement. I was still holding the flyer, and for a moment, I thought I felt it tremble.
I dropped back onto the sofa. "What does Betelgeuse even mean?"
The feeling of excitement intensified. It's like I'd suddenly done something that some kind of presence really wanted me to do, but it was still not quite there.
That's when it hit me. The flyer said the name three times. I'd said it twice. I'd sort of had this sixth sense for things ever since I was little. I didn't feel anything in church, but sometimes I'd just get this tingle when I was in a random place, like something was there, although I couldn't see or hear anything. Usually I found out later that it had been special to someone who died or the person had actually died there. There was even a bridge in this rural town in Connecticut when we'd been on a road trip, and I felt this…moist chill while we were on it, like I was in the river below. We found out later that a young couple had drowned while driving on the bridge (but it had been rebuilt afterwards to be wider). There was a little plaque on one side of the bridge honouring them. Was this flyer thing something more than it seemed? Like, there was actually some kind of entity or something that could ease my worries about the afterlife (or prove I was right to be afraid of death)?
Well, there was nothing to lose. Three syllables. Then I would have said it three times. That would be enough.
I sighed and said "Whatever. Betelgeuse."
We'll see what Saskia's done in the next chapter. I know we're jumping into it early, but there was a lot of exposition and I wanted to keep you guys hooked. Also, I know it's mostly said consecutively, but the movie implies you can say words between them, because Lydia says it once, then says "Your name's Betelgeuse?", which counts as saying it despite her saying a couple of words between it. So if Lydia can do it, so can Saskia. And yes, I referenced the Maitlands and their deaths. Also, Saskia can't see ghosts, but she's sensitive to their presence.
If you're asking why the flyer is for a death coach, that will be explained. It's been decades since the movie. Who says you can't offer more than one service to the dead?
Fun fact: Cancer is the Latin word for "crab". The condition was named because it spreads, reaching like crab pincers. Also, Saskia's family lives in Montgomery, Alabama, and she ran away to Darien, Georgia. A 16-hour drive. And the mispronunciation of "Betelgeuse"? It's like Adam saying "Beetle-guys". Like, a bug and multiple Guy Fawkeses.