A/N: Oh wow, it's been a while since I've written fanfic, so let's see if I remember how to do this. Wish me luck.
Spoilers: Takes inspiration from Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice including the tv show and musical.
TRIGGER WARNING: DEATH, SUCIDE, FUNERALS, CEMENTARY/GRAVES
Synopsis: After burying her mother, Astrid is left feeling alone more than ever. She only knows one other thing that truly knows Lydia Deetz, Astrid seeks out Beetlejuice at first to reminisce about Lydia but than Astrid and Beetlejuice begin to strike up a father/daughter relationship. Beetlejuice takes pride in officially being a DAD, until Astrid says, "I can't see my mum." And they set out to figure out why.
Chapter One
Now 36 years old, Astrid looks around at the mourners surrounding the grave of the famous Lydia Deetz. She sighs softly, no one by the grave knows Lydia. They all knew her as the woman who had a talk show and could see and hear ghosts. They all saw Lydia as a public media personality and not as a mother, as a woman, as a human being.
Astrid looks over at her grandparents' graves; Charles and Delia, she wished she could see them. Even decades later, wishing her grandparents would just pop back over from the great beyond, but Lydia had always told her daughter "Once they cross over, that's it."
She returned her attention to her mother's grave.
Lydia Deetz. Daughter. Mother. Ghost see-er. Missed by all.
Would Lydia really be missed by all? Astrid didn't recognise any of these faces. As much as she despised Rory, she would've at least taken comfort in seeing him here, if it wasn't for the sandworm that had taken him and Beetlejuice's first wife; Dolores.
As the crowd of mourners began to leave bidding their condolences, Astrid felt truly alone. She kept her eyes on her mother's grave. Hoping, praying that Lydia was just pop back into her daughter's life.
But nothing.
Astrid was torn between loss and anger. She hated that she couldn't see her mother, she hadn't been able to see Lydia since the day she had heard about her mother passing in her sleep but now...now…Astrid began to suspect it wasn't a natural death.
She remembered when they had found her piranha covered father, Astrid had come to realise that her father had committed suicide. With the help of the handbook for the recently deceased, Astrid had read that those who commit suicide can't be seen to their living loved ones. Maybe that's what her mother had done? That could explain it.
Astrid wasn't there when her mother died, Lydia was off on a ghost hunt for Ghost House With Lydia Deetz.
She hated herself for not being there with her mother. She hated that she had to get a phone call about her mother's passing. She hated that she can't hold her mother's hand anymore. She hated that she couldn't talk to her mother anymore.
She began to wonder up to the famous ghost house, the house that her mother had grown up in and even to this day, everyone knew about the Maitland's and the unfortunate thing called Beetlejuice.
No matter how much Janey 3.0 tried to convince the Deetz woman to sell the house, Lydia had been set against selling the home.
Astrid looked up at the house. She remembered when her grandma; Delia, covered the house in black fabric to mourn the loss of Charles. She smiled a little.
Now the white house sat uncovered.
Astrid sighed.
She turned her attention out to the road; all the mourners were now gone leaving her all alone with her thoughts and the house that everyone but her loved.
Astrid slowly made her way inside, slowly up the stairs leading up to the attic. She pushed open the attic door, the only place in the house that hadn't changed since she was a teenager.
Boxes still piled around the room, plastic covered furniture, spiderwebs decorating most of the room, dust over almost everything.
Her eyes looked at the model of the town. The one she knew held something untameable within its neighbourhood. She leaned closer to the model trying to find a particular something.
She smiled a little seeing a replica gravestone of her mother's next to a headstone labelled with Betelgeuse lies here.
Astrid found some comfort in knowing Lydia would have at least some guidance to lead her through the afterlife. Maybe that's why Astrid couldn't see her mother? Lydia and Beetlejuice were finally together.
Astrid shook her head slightly. What little she knew about Beetlejuice certainly wasn't something her mother cared to elaborate on.
She blinked away her tears, her water eyes focused on the model cemetery noticing a pinstripe suit wearer hunched over, their green hair frizzed out. Astrid knew who exactly it was.
"Beetlejuice." She softly spoke.
Beetlejuice tilted their head upwards, knowing what was coming next but didn't even wait for their name to be called three times before appearing in a puff of smoke next to the woman they knew as their dream girl's daughter. "Astrid, my girl."
Beetlejuice wrapped their arms around her. "I can't believe she's gone." They cried onto the woman's shoulder.
In a weird little way Astrid took comfort in knowing Beetlejuice mourned for Lydia.
Chapter Two
Astrid sat in the lounge room surrounded by Delia's artwork and family photos. Beetlejuice plopped themselves down next to Astrid.
"It feels weird to be here without mum." Astrid softly spoke.
Beetlejuice scans over the photos, many of them they had no care for but there was one that had caught their eye. Two photos of a than 16-year-old Lydia Deetz in a red dress and a forty-something year old Lydia in the same red dress. He jumped up to his feet, reaching out to the two photos.
If Beetlejuice could blush, they would. Their perfect bride. Their dream woman. Their love of their life.
"Mind if I take these?" Beetlejuice tossed the question to the young woman.
Astrid shrugged a little.
Beetlejuice took it as a yes, slipping both the framed photos into their jacket pocket. "Gotta keeps her close to my heart."
"Who am I supposed to talk to now? Mum's gone. Grandma's gone. Grandad's gone."
"You have me." Beetlejuice piped up.
Astrid looked up at the poltergeist in front of her. She may not have seen Beetlejuice since she was a teenager, but this seemed different to what she remembered about the ghost with the most. "But I don't know you."
"You could."
Astrid cringed with creepiness.
"I love Lydia. So that makes me your dad." Beetlejuice bounced on the balls of their feet. "That makes me your dad. I can be your dad."
"I already have one."
"I can be your second dad. What's it called. Stepdad?" Beetlejuice quickly thought aloud. "That's what I'll be. I'll teach you how to ride a bike."
Astrid magically appeared sitting on a bicycle, Beetlejuice had one hand on a handlebar while their other hand was on the back of Astrid, gently pushing Astrid along the lounge room.
"But beet..."
"Shh..." They hushed her.
"But I already know how to ride a bike."
"Fine."
Astrid falls to the floor with a thud as the bike disappeared.
"I can teach you how to play ball."
The lounge room transferred into a baseball pitch, with dead baseball players on each base. "Now kid, just swing." Beetlejuice disguised as a catcher squat behind Astrid.
She doesn't have a choice as a green ball flies towards her, she takes a swing.
"NOW RUN, KID!" Beetlejuice shouts.
Astrid is forced to throw the bat down, running through each base before sliding back to the spot she had hit from.
"ASTRID DEETZ HAS WON THE GAME!" Beetlejuice cheers.
"Beet…" She felt her mouth zipped shut, she tried to pull the zipper from her mouth before finally unzipping it. "No more."
The baseball pitch disappeared.
Beetlejuice slumped down on the lounge. "I'm such a bad dad." They cried.
"Oh. No." She began to feel guilty; she carefully touches their shoulder. "You're not a bad dad. You're a good dad." Astrid wasn't sure where that sentence had come from.
"You think I'm a good dad?" Beetlejuice looked up at Astrid.
"of course. What other father would get a whole baseball game in their house?"
"I'm a good dad!" Beetlejuice glees.
Astrid watches as Beetlejuice accepts a father of the year award.
"This goes out to my darling daughter Astrid, if it wasn't for her making me a dad." They gushed.
Astrid seemed embarrassed. Was this what her mother had to go through when Lydia was sixteen?
Beetlejuice swooped in close to their newfound daughter. "Daughter." They felt proud to say the word. "My daughter. I have a daughter." There was a glaze of love in their eyes. "I'm going to be the best dad you've ever had."
Astrid tried to hold back her comments about her own dad. She didn't want him replaced even if he had died a few years before her grandad did.
"So, what should be do first?"
Astrid stayed silent.
"I know. I'll take you to get ice cream." Beetlejuice grabs Astrid's hand pulling her through the house, opening the back door to reveal an ice cream shop.
Her eyes light up.
"What do you want? It's all on me." Beetlejuice laughed as ice cream was dumped on them, they popped their head up from the mound of ice cream.
Astrid laughed. She couldn't believe it. She remembered this creature as the one who was trying to marry her mum, the one who got rid of Rory and the one who forced everyone to break out into song during that wedding. This person seemed more fun than she expected.
Beetlejuice shook of the last remnants of ice cream, their suit magically clean of any speck of ice cream.
Astrid jumped a little as a blue faced ice cream server with a popped behind the counter.
"What will it be?" The server glumly asked.
She looked up at the menu seeing various flavours of cones, smoothies, cups, and ice cream cakes. She looked down at the flavours, it all looked like flavours that had been sitting since B.C. Astrid watched a worm moved through a green looking flavour.
"Ooh...I'll have that one." Beetlejuice drooled.
"Cup or cone?"
"Cone. Extra worms." Beetlejuice snorted.
Astrid shivered a little. "Do you have anything without bugs?"
"Without bugs? You haven't lived until you tried bugsnberry." Beetlejuice joked.
Astrid scrunched up her face in disgust.
"Just a plain chocolate cone for the little lady."
Astrid watched the dead server make up two ice cream ones, she watched as Beetlejuice greedily licked up the bug's cone. Her stomach churned as she looked at the chocolate cone in her hand.
"Ain't this a nice day with your dear ol' dad."
"Sure." Astrid wasn't sure how to respond as they sat in a booth. She took sight of the other patrons.
A woman with a hair straightener stuck in her curly hair, a man with a bleeding hole in his chest, a couple dressed in orange with hand cuffs tight over their wrists and cut marks.
Beetlejuice sat with uncertainty as they watched Astrid. "You don't like your ice cream?"
Astrid returned her attention to Beetlejuice. "Oh, I do..it's just.."
Beetlejuice leaned forward, waiting for her to finish her answer.
"This is all just too much."
"Why didn't you say so?"
The ice cream store disappeared, they returned to the comfort of the kitchen of the Deetz home. Bowls of ice cream sat on the kitchen bench with various toppings waiting to be used.
"B.."
"Nope. Can't say the B-word."
Astrid seemed confused.
"It's part of the rules. Don't blame me. I don't make the rules. Come to think of it I don't think I have any rules." He snorted.
"Is this what you and mum did?"
"Is this what..." Beetlejuice tumbled over with laughter "is this what Lydia and I..."
Astrid stood with embarrassment.
"Oh. You were serious. Sorry kid." Beetlejuice quickly stopped laughing. "What your mother and I had was a little more..." They paused as they tried to find the word. "One sided. She loved me, your dear mother certainly did but sometimes she forgot I even existed." They slumped down on the stool at the kitchen bench.