The Groom To Be

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Lydia's Eternity

She felt the gag around her mouth. Of course she'd be at this part. I should have said it faster, Miss Second Chance warned me!

She tried to say it in her own way. A way without as much words. Beetlejuice didn't like to get too mushy anyway, so just outright. In a rose. His whole magic was seeping with negative energy, as soon as he touched it, it would wither and reveal the option.

Half his friendly smile had fangs. One of his eyes had a strange green, red, and purple flame changing inside of his pupil. One of his hands had become like claws. He was already starting to transform past the point of no return.

Idiot! I messed this up. If he kills the last one, then I go somewhere better, but he goes to hell! It's not fair! I'd rather be stuck here! I'd rather be stuck and let him have his afterlife!

Lydia saw the gun already in her hands again. I can't change anything. She heard her father giving her advice, and telling her it wasn't her fault again. Beetlejuice. I'm so sorry. Beetlejuice. I wish I could have said it faster. Beetlejuice. She raised her gun.

She fired the shot.

It hit the rope? Her father was freed.

"Nice shot, Pumpkin!" he congratulated her.

She hit the rope? How did she hit the rope?

"Babes."

Lydia turned around and saw - "BJ!" She hugged him as she started to hear screams and the sound of people running. She wasn't the only dead shadow that had been freed.

"Lyds." Beetlejuice pulled her away just enough to see her. He gave her a ring. "Not the best and charming, but neither am I," he reminded her. "Ha! I just broke your eternity using your little ring trick." He showed off the ring he found. He took the ring off and rolled it around his fingers before putting it back on. "Follow through won't be fun, but we are desperate. Those other dead shadows were freed with you."

"I don't care," Lydia assured him. "The Neitherworld is huge. I'll probably never see them. They aren't worth losing you."

"No foolin, Lyds," he said, his tone holding a degree of warning. "Other choice is me go to hell or you stay here. Willing to work things out for it." He looked a little strangely at her. "I already used my last resort of Doomie, and I gotta tell ya?" He gestured toward his head. "I used to think of pranks all the time and I'm just constantly thinking of torture and killing, and that's gotta change."

He looked desperate. He wanted to stop everything. I don't know how he feels. I'm sorry, Miss Second Chance, but going from friends to Mrs. Beetle Juice is just too much without something between! "I just want out too, Beetlejuice." He gestured for her to continue. "Beetlejuice."

"One more time, Babe," he insisted as he made sure the cheap rings were on, "and we'll go home together."

Together. "Beetlejuice."

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Neitherworld.

"Pa-pow!" As soon as BJ got back to the Roadhouse, Mayor Maynot was there. He held out her hand and his to show off the rings. "Nothing doing. This beats dating by miles, so no more yanking her out of here!" he yelled at him.

Mayor Maynot just shook his head and glared at Lydia. "You made so many people sad tonight."

"Yeah? Well, I'm happy, Mayor." They survived.

"One week!" Mayor Maynot warned Beetlejuice. "You have one week. I want a ceremony with proof, with words, I'll be attending, and I want a full description of how you plan on having your kids. Don't expect me to fall for anything, I fully will judge this as harshly and proficiently as I can!"

"As long as they are making plans to have legitimate Neitherworld children, you cannot judge too much," Miss Second Chance said as she handed Beetlejuice a piece of paper. "Here and here. Lydia will sign on the same pages under client."

Beetlejuice looked at the papers, annoyed. "Figures. Not like you help out of the goodness of your heart." He signed and gave it to Lydia. "Can't exactly deny it."

Lydia looked at the papers. That really was her game? It's not like they could object, she had helped them. It was an awkward sounding paper, but at it's core, it was true. Miss Second Chance had proof that an eternity can be flipped back into the afterlife.

"Do I get any cut of this book's profits?" Beetlejuice had to ask.

She looked at him like he was an idiot. "I'll be at your wedding."

"Probably a couple thousand more papers to sign there," Beetlejuice whispered to Lydia.

Well? It doesn't matter. We are safe, and I don't need any money off any books. Everything turned out perfectly fine.

Perfectly. Fine. Except, the groom. I really need to work this out. He just assumed it was him. Now I don't know what to do.

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Lydia letted her mom fuss with her, while her dad sulked on the Roadhouse's couch. So far, BJ had brought them to her because this fell in 'important occasion time'. He was allowed to move them from the house as visitors for a short time. She hadn't told BJ anything else about who she planned on asking about marriage, he just assumed it was him.

And, so far, she hadn't corrected him.

Delia was deliriously happy and hugging her again. After death, she probably didn't think she'd get to see her daughter get married.

"See? I told you, Mister D," Beetlejuice said as he shook his hand. "The Ghost with the Most handled the problem."

Lydia's dad wasn't pleased with those words. "Handled the problem? This is handling the problem?"

"No more dead shadow risk," Beetlejuice insisted.

"I didn't say you were supposed to marry her to escape the problem!"

"Well, comes with the territory. I mean, you did trust a dead guy you hardly knew with your daughter. What'd you expect?"

"Beej'," Lydia warned him. "Easy with my dad."

"Yeah. Easy with my dad too," Beej' agreed. "Hey Chuck, you're my Father-In-Law. Pretty nifty, huh?"

"Ho-o-o-ow?" He managed to say.

"The important thing is," Beetlejuice pointed out, "that she's safe now." He twisted his arms together. "Our afterlives are intertwined in the Neitherworld. She can't even fall without me."

"Why did you want to intertwine your afterlife with Mister Beetleman?" Charles had to ask his daughter.

Oh no, not a direct question.

"Oh, Charles, be happy. Lydia is safe and sound, and now we get to plan a wedding!" she said joyfully. "We simply must have a ceremony. What do ceremonies look like in the afterlife?"

"Oh, the best Mrs. D," Beetlejuice said as he started to float. "Wait 'til I take you to Bridezilla. They've got all the best prices with the most outrageous customers! I go there sometimes just to watch the customers. Plus, we can make it extra big for a low price with Wedding Party In a Can."

"Beej."

"We can pick up some buttercream and beetle-filled cake."

"Beej."

"Definitely cannot forget the sappy pews. Fits twenty guests that wear bathing suits."

"Beej!" Lydia said loud enough for him to notice. I really should tell him it could be someone else, but he's just so . . . He was floating. He was joking. He was excited. He seemed genuinely okay with everything. "Maybe something a little more subtle at first? We made Jacques faint when he found out, and someone hired a blimp that says 'Beetlejuice and Lydia: it's the end of the world' that's been circling the Neitherworld all day."

"Why a ceremony?" her father asked. "Why are we celebrating this lie?"

"Not technically a lie. That's why we gotta celebrate it," Beetlejuice explained. "No prob, Mister D. My parents are footing the bill. They've been wanting a grandkid for at least a thousand years if not more."

Bea Juice really wanted grandkids. No one's really against the idea that matters.

"Well, I haven't been waiting for grandchildren." Her father was a little standoffish.

"Charles, goodness. Your daughter is safe and happy!" Delia took her fingers and was going to make a happy expression on Lydia, but she put them back down. Apparently she was already smiling. "We get special permission to be here for our daughter. We are going to be in that house for 125 years, Charles, so we are going to make this the best wedding possible," Delia insisted. "Ooh, I still get to see my daughter get married even though I'm dead! I never dreamed this would happen."

"Okay, okay. Just? Let me ask." Charles stood up and looked at Beetlejuice. "This is because . . . it got her out of being a dead shadow, right?"

"Right," Beetlejuice agreed. "Me out of hell too. I was real close. Great bonus."

"Okay," Charles said. "Having a marriage keeps my little girl safe? You didn't really . . . really didn't just steal my little Lydia under false pretenses of helping her, did you? It is you that she has to marry to stay out of her terrible eternity?"

Beetlejuice scratched his head. Some bugs started to come out from it, making her mother and father cringe. "Oh, Mayor Maynot has a sour sense of humor. I'll be back."

"He? He just left!" Charles complained. "I asked him a serious question and he just left."

"Charles!" Delia went over to calm down her husband. "This is the way it is. Accept it." She looked toward Lydia and hugged her, but gave her a low mutter. "He probably will eventually want something like a husband, just be prepared." She pulled away. "Prepared for such a big day."

"But! But he's! But!" Charles pushed his hands into his pockets and kicked the couch lightly. Then regretted it as some bugs crawled out of it. "Do you have to live with a husband because our house is still fairly clean."

"Charles!"

"Just asking, Delia." He stared at his daughter. "Well?"

There was only one reason Beetlejuice left like that without saying something. "You left me with Beetlejuice, Father, because you knew he could protect me," Lydia said to her father. "That's all you'll probably ever understand about him." But there's so much more to him than Father will ever understand.

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A short ways away from the Roadhouse

"I hate this place, I hate this place," Duncan said as he tip toed around another huge bug. "Everyone and everything is so disgusting and weird."

"Stop."

Duncan, Carter, Brady, and Finley all stopped as they saw Betty Juice.

"Do you know why you are in the Neitherworld now?" Betty Juice turned into an older guy with black and white stripes and really gnarly hair and teeth. "Because death is too easy. If any of the Deetzes see you, I will make the way I killed you feel like nothing."

Huh? Duncan screamed as beetles rained down on him.

"Hi, Brady!" Rebecca appeared and waved at him as her old boyfriend kissed her.

"Carter! Why did you let me die?" Carter's grandmother.

Finley yelled as he was being lifted in the air to stardom again, only to fall to the ground, bent out of proportion. He pulled himself up, but his arm was jutting out in strange directions.

"Hey, that's just round one. Keep going straight and you'll get a hell of a lot more," he warned them.

"Well, then just tell us where we can go and where we can't?" Duncan said as the beetles stopped falling on him.

"Nah, because then that'll set borders on the Deetzes. I don't want to do that. You just have to watch out."

"Then how are we supposed to know?" Brady complained.

"When hell starts terrorizing you, change direction because I can tell exactly where you are," he told him.

"But who are you?" Brady asked. "You aren't a young girl."

He pointed toward the blimp in the air.

"Beetlejuice and Lydia: End of the world," Brady read it. "Your name's Beetlejuice?"

"You're clearly dead, just like us." Finley tried to get brave. "You don't have the same effect as you used to, we are already dead. You can't do anything to us but scare us."

Then, Beetlejuice was face to face with Finley. "You think because we are both dead, that you're even with me?"

"Wh-when we learn magic, you'll see where you stand," Finley told him.

"Where will you stand? Here?" He shot a chair from the ground and took Finley up higher and higher and higher. Then secured the chair in the air. "You work on that magic then. Right up there. Until you figure out how to get down." He made his ear bigger just to try and hear the screaming and yelling. No one else in the Neitherworld would hear it, nor would anyone really care to mess with a foreign chair or magic they didn't create.

The chair's stem was made jaggedly with grooves, no easy pole to slide down. Finley would either try and jump and end up dying again. He'd slowly make his way down, busting, bruising and bleeding out fingers as he made his way down. Or he might just stay up there and never do anything. Any of those were acceptable.

He looked toward the other three. "Any other objections? Or do you want me to tell you all the different ways you can actually die again?"

"No, no," Duncan said first. "I'll just go this way." He walked in another direction. "There were more bugs that way anyhow."

Brady and Carter didn't say anything, just left Finley up in the air.

Great. Now that that was taken care of? He had something else to do. A surprise for Lyds. He could do more than just bring her parents back for a visit now.

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Lydia discussed plans with her mom. Something between the afterlife decorations and the real world sensibility of decorations. She would bend on almost everything but the wedding dress. White isn't the color she wanted, she wanted red like her favorite outfit Beetlejuice made her.

Meanwhile, her dad was sort of pacing, still coming to terms with everything.

"Lydia!"

Then, she heard it. Their voices with new words. New emotional words. "Bertha? Prudence?!" She went over and hugged each of them. It felt so nice to see them again.

"Hey, a wedding is a big enough cause to justify a visit for them," Beetlejuice said as he appeared behind them.

It was so amazing! "I wanted to invite you to my wedding. Can you stay for it?"

"Lydia? You're dead but you are getting married?" Prudence asked slowly.

"Oh, I am there!" Bertha said proudly as she took another hug. "Is Betty Juice going to be there too?"

"You know I'll be." Beetlejuice came over as himself. "Yeah, I may have missed a few things before bringing them over. I figured it sounded better coming from you."

Lydia told them all about Beetlejuice, him being Betty Juice, Mister Beetleman, what he did for her not to be a dead shadow, and finally. That she was marrying him.

"Hey. I never said you didn't have strange taste," Bertha said looking at Beetlejuice. "Actually, I always said you had strange taste. Death didn't change that. You?" She gestured to him. "Your marrying Lydia?" Beetlejuice nodded. "Eh. Your honeymoon is going to get weird Lydia."

"Oh?" Lydia felt awkward. "Well? It's not really the same kind of wedding."

"There is no relationship." Her father easily came over to explain. "This is the only way they can seem to keep her safe. Otherwise, Lydia would not dream of doing this - what about someone else, Sweetie? Don't you just have to get married to anyone technically?"

Lydia gritted her teeth a little hard. I don't even have to say it, he's making it pretty clear.

"Dads sometimes," Bertha said to Lydia.

"I always knew that camp adventure wasn't something that could be replicated anywhere in our world," Prudence said to Lydia. "It was still lots of fun. I'll stay for the wedding too. When will it be?"

"Oh, we need to talk about how many guests, and the decorations, and things," Lydia told them. "I'll probably draw it out some, because you can visit between to help, and so can my parents. That and BJ will probably help too."

"Oh yeah, I love parties, and a wedding is supposed to be the biggest party of them all!" He blew on a noisemaker as he turned into a sort of merry go round.

So much better. Lydia couldn't help another smile. More and more, Beetlejuice was changing back to more of his old self again. The getting married, her father's words, nothing seemed to bother him. Maybe, over time? Maybe.

"Before the wedding, you just gotta ask for a ride, the same way I showed you to come here," Beetlejuice told them. "Be real careful with the name."

"We will!" They both said with wild enthusiasm as they both hugged Lydia once again.

"Okay, okay. This was so very wonderful," Delia said to them, "but I'm trying to measure for the dress. Thank you." Delia took another spot by the end of Lydia. "You'd still look elegant in white."

"I don't want to look elegant, I want to look rad," Lydia insisted. "Red is going to be the greatest."

"Yeah, red is always your color." Beetlejuice zapped her into a wedding dress. Red, with a red veil, and a black and white beetle charm pinned on it.

"Oh, that is really rad!" Bertha agreed. "You should wear that."

"No, no, no," Delia insisted. "The groom is not supposed to see the bride in her wedding dress before the wedding. It's very bad luck."

"Pbbt. This is the Neitherworld, that thing is just in the living world. The only bad luck is us not going through with this," Beetlejuice told Delia.

"It is really pretty." Prudence was coming around to it too. "It fits you so well."

"Of course." Beetlejuice always made things fit her perfectly, he knew her body very well. Not that he studied it or anything. Just, we've been friends for so long, he naturally knows my shape. That's all. His juicing just knows those specifics. They'd know it for anyone. Why do I keep dwelling on this? Geez, Lydia, decide! He already gets the other options, and he isn't making a move. Do I have to?

"You alright, Babe?" Beetlejuice asked her.

"Yeah. Just, overwhelmed. Everyone I've been wanting to see is all here with me." A little overwhelming. Everyone could be there to prepare for the big day. Beetlejuice changed her out of her wedding outfit and gave her her favorite Neitherworld outfit again.

------------------------

Beetlejuice looked at the whole crowd. Mister D. was sulking on the couch. Delia was helping with a dress somehow. Burp and Prune were talking up a storm. And a really hard knocking from the door made itself known.

He answered it. Ugh. Shouldn't have answered it.

"Oh, it's not really true, is it?" The Monster Across the Street asked. "I saw the blimp."

"It's not false," Mr. D said to him. "My lovely daughter is marrying . . . Beetlejuice."

"Beetlejuice?! Lydia?! What in tarnation! Lydia is the sweetest, most polite person in the Neitherworld. To end with Beetlejuice is a crime!"

"Oui, it is." Jacques showed up from behind him and presented a ring. "I would gladly marry and take care of you, to keep you from this terrible fate."

What the hell is this?

"Is he nicer?" Mister D. asked Lydia.

Lydia didn't answer her father.

"She's not interested!" Beetlejuice slammed the door on Jacques and Monster Across the Street.

Mister D. just watched Lydia. "Are you sure there isn't someone else that will fit better? Someone more like you?" He looked toward Beetlejuice. "I'm sorry but I'm serious. Can you realistically take care of all the ends? You have to have a baby. That means you'll need a job to support her and the family. And, what's that sound?"

Nooooo. He knew that sound too. That clip-clop. No. Damn it! Jacques was one thing, he couldn't be here! Think fast, think fast, or Lydia will definitely choose him! I'd never see her again, just quick visits, to her, and her stupid royal family kids! No! "I'll be fine Mister D, no worries. My parents will help out if things get too rough, they've been waiting for me to have a kid for ages. They are super excited. Deliriously excited, they're so excited, they'll be here any minute." Okay. Guilt might help?

Another knock on the door. Beetlejuice didn't want to answer this time, but Mister D. did.

"Ah, my dear Lydia!" Prince Vince smiled at her as he came in. "I, Prince Vince, have heard of your announcement."

"I'm gonna kick whoever put up that damn blimp," Beetlejuice complained. Probably Jacques.

"I wanted to offer my congratulations." He came over to Lydia and kissed her hand. "How did this come about though?"

"She has to marry someone to not be a dead shadow." Wow, Mister D. really left it open ended.

"Yeah, but it's settled, she's marrying me. I'm involved too, so we both are supporting each other." Yeah, that sounded good. Don't you dare offer her your damn hand.

"Hello Prince Vince," Bertha came over toward him. "So, you knew Lydia. She knew a Prince." She looked toward Lydia. "Like I said, strange taste." She looked back toward him. "There's no ring on your hand."

"Oh no, I'm not married," Prince Vince said. "I tried once. I asked Lydia some time ago, but she only wanted to be friends."

Did he have to say that?! Beetlejuice scooted his arm sleeves up unconsciously.

"You proposed?" Bertha looked toward Lydia.

"I was still really young," Lydia said. "I didn't want to be a princess."

"Princess is better than a dead shadow by far." Now Delia was flipping. "He has money and fame and a title, Lydia. Maybe you should tell him the details and ask him?"

Even Mrs. Deetz? Geez, am I just chopped liver to everyone?

"I think everyone should sit down and get all the details straight," Mister D. insisted. "Before anything else happens, or any yes' or no's happen?"

"Hey, I think I hear my parents." Screw it, he had to move fast. He juiced his parents there. Both of them were shocked, but he pulled them into the trick real well. It wasn't the first time he'd had to do that. "Hey, Ma, glad you could make it. I knew you and dad could, not every day I get married and finally give you that grandkid you've been pining for."

" . . . oh." It always took them half a second to pick up on it. "Yes, excited, been waiting a very long time."

"Yep." Beetlejuice's father went by Lydia. "It's you, right?"

"Oh, pops is such a kidder." Beetlejuice tried to cover it.

"Yeah, I'm her." Lydia didn't sound as confident now. "I'm sorry, everybody. I think I have to talk to BJ privately for a little while."