Author's Notes: I feel like the ending of the Broadway musical makes for a perfect prologue to the cartoon series. With that idea in mind, I wrote this! Not necessarily Beetlebabes, but some implied. Some spoilers for the show, but original ending. Enjoy!

Lydia ran through the inky, black darkness. It was almost like running under water; the expanse that surrounded her resisted her very presence, pressing the air from her lungs with every step. Lydia was acutely aware that she didn't belong in the Netherworld, but her grief drove her on. If she could just see her mother one last time, say the things she never got the chance to say before Emily Deetz's life was cut short...maybe then she could finally find some peace. But how was Lydia going to find her mother in this endless void? Sweaty, frightened, and lost, Lydia Deetz fell to her knees with a primal scream.

She called for her mom until her voice was raw.

'That's right, goth girl,' she thought bitterly. 'Cry for your momma.'

Embarrassed, angry tears flowed freely as Lydia sobbed. There was only one other name she could think to call...

From the land of the living, Beetlejuice could hear Lydia's cries echoing in his head, could feel her hopelessness. He hadn't experienced living emotions for so long, but in an instant he was reminded of what it felt like to have a chill trip down the spine. He stopped dead (ironic) in his tracks, which was more than a little irritating. He was right in the middle of torturing! But when she called him, the world titled on its axis.

"What is happening, ghost-woman?" Delia asked Barbara in a half-whisper.

"Beetlejuice?" Barbara asked, concern in her voice.

The demon's eyes met Mrs. Maitland's.

"It's Lydia, isn't it?" she asked as the panic mounted.

"What do you mean?" Adam asked. "How would he know?"

"She turned me loose," Beetlejuice chimed in with a roll of his eyes. "Now we're linked."

"What a notion," Adam remarked under his breath.

With a snap of Beetlejuice's pale fingers, the chains that had bound Delia, Barbara and Adam evaporated.

"Is she in trouble?" asked Barbara.

"If she is, she brought it on herself. She can rot for all I care."

"You don't mean that."

Beetlejuice rounded on Barbara.

"SHE LEFT ME!" he yelled, towering over her.

"Lydia just wants her mom," Delia added. "She was desperate! Wow, I am so winning at coaching her life. I just hope Charles is ok, he isn't as tough as he looks."

Beetlejuice felt Lydia's cold panic crash over him like a wave, and he had to grab the dining room table to steady himself. He growled as he pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket.

"Damn it!"

He felt an arm on the striped sleeve of his jacket.

Barbara was looking up at him with concern etched into her features.

"Just bring her home. We'll figure everything else out later."

"She jumped into hell to get away from me."

"She jumped to get to her mother, not away from you."

Beetlejuice gave a sharp nod in response.

"She must hate me!" He choked out.

Barbara shook her head.

"Only one way to find out."

…..

When Beetlejuice saw Lydia on the ground crying, he realized just how small she actually was. She was so smart, so sharp-tongued, so witty, that he had overlooked her youth. Her soul was as old as his, that was for sure, but now she looked like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was kneeling next to her with his hands on her shoulders.

Without looking up, she turned into his embrace and held on for dear life.

"Yeah, I told you this place sucks." Beetlejuice said into Lydia's damp hair.

"How can my mom be in this place?" She sobbed.

"She died. Duh!"

"No! I mean, where's her eternal reward?"

"Life is the reward. Then you get to remember it for all eternity."

"That's shit."

"Yup."

"LYDIA!" came the booming voice of Charles Deetz.

Lydia stiffened in Beetlejuice's arms, immediately masking her emotions.

"You shouldn't have followed me."

"You're my daughter, Lydia."

"Am I? You pretend I don't exist most of the time."

"I…"

"Sometimes I feel like you buried me with mom."

"Oooook," Beetlejuice interrupted. "I feel an emotional denouement coming on, so I'll just wait over there."

Lydia rounded on him.

"I'm not done with you, either!"

Beetlejuice put his hands up defensively as Lydia turned back to her father.

"I'm sorry Lydia," Charles said softly. "I feel like I've been in such a fog since…since…Emily died. You are so much like her, sometimes when I see you out of the corner of my eye…"

Lydia inhaled sharply.

"I'm doing the best I can. She was everything, my whole world! I'm learning how to live without her, but I can't live without you, too!"

"I don't want to learn to live without her!" Lydia cried. "I want to say her name. I want to remember her."

At this, the girl began to sob in earnest.

"Please, don't let me forget her."

Charles scooped his daughter into an embrace.

"I promise, I'll never let you forget her. We can talk about her whenever you'd like."

Lydia cracked a small smile at this.

"That's all I wanted."

"This is a very touching scene," Beetlejuice interrupted. "But we really need to get out of here!"

"She's not going anywhere with you!" Charles shouted.

"Hold on dad, I got this!" Lydia stepped between the two men, arms crossed.

"Please, Lyds…"

"Why should I take you back with me?" She asked, punctuating each word by poking a finger into his chest. "You lied to me, you tricked me, and you hurt Barbara!"

"Babs is fine, I promise!"

"You're just going to leave anyway once you're free, right? That's all you really want is to get away from me, isn't it?!"

"Wait, what? You have that backwards! You ran here to get away from me!"

"I just wanted to find my mom! I saw a chance and I took it, but she's nowhere, Beej! I tried…" she became tearful again. "But it's like she doesn't want to be found."

Lydia wrapped her arms around herself and the tears returned.

Beetlejuice licked his lips, afraid to say the wrong thing.

"Lydia look, from the sound of it, your mom had a really happy life with you two breathers. I don't think any of her business was left unfinished. She doesn't have anything left to give you. I mean, come on, even if you found her and got to say one more goodbye, would that be enough?"

Lydia's wide eyes met his, lip quivering.

"Tell me the truth," he continued, thumbing away one of her tears. "Would there ever be enough time?"

Her eyes closed.

"No." She replied on a whisper.

He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders.

"And for the record," he said. "I wasn't going to leave you once we got married. I would be bound to you for all conceivable time. Otherwise the contract is null and I am re-banished."

"Why would you want to be bound to me?"

"You're the only living thing that has been able to see me in over two-hundred years." He replied with a shaking voice. "That can't be an accident."

At this, Charles intervened.

"Lydia is a child, she's only 15 for God's sake!"

"It's a green-card thing, dude."

"You keep saying that, but what does it mean?"

"It means you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. If I mistreat you, hurt you, force you…the contract breaks. You're in the driver's seat, Babes."

Lydia nodded slowly.

"So you'll respect my boundaries?"

"I will."

"You won't abandon me?"

"I couldn't if I wanted to."

Lydia's eyes lowered to the ground.

"Do you want to?" She asked quietly.

He hooked his pointer finger under her chin and brought her gaze up to meet his.

"No. You do this for me, and I'll use my power to keep your whole weird crew safe."

"You get to keep your powers?"

"Ain't it grand?"

"And that includes Barbara and Adam?"

"You have my word."

Lydia looked to her father.

"I'm not going to make this choice for you, Lydia."

She looked back to Beetlejuice and reached out to take his hand.

"Let's go home."

He looped her arm through the crook of his own and began leading her and his future father-in-law back through the door…

A year later, Lydia bounds down the steps of her school at the end of a long day, itching to be back home. Claire Brewster is a thorn in her side she wishes she could eradicate, but all is forgotten when she sees her husband waiting to walk her home.

"Hey Babes," he says on a wink. "How was your day?"

"Don't even get me started, Lawrence!" She replies, always using his first name in public.

"Just say the three 'B's and I can take care of it for you."

"Not necessary. Just tell me about what you guys have been cooking up for tonight?"

At that, he pulled a single, black rose from inside his jacket pocket.

"Well, since it's our anniversary, I thought a rooftop picnic in the moonlight?"

"I can't believe you actually remembered!"

"And then after dinner, I figured we could put some bees in Adam's bonnet."

"What do you mean?"

"That wasn't a metaphor, I meant actual bees."

Lydia rolled her eyes and started to walk away from Beetlejuice, but he grabbed her with a sharp cackle around her middle and spun her around.

"Jeez Lyds, can't you take a joke?"

She betrayed her look of astonishment with a fit of laughter.

"No bees! Just walk me home and make me a sammich, you freak!"

"Yes, dear."

The End.