A/N- I do not own any of these characters. I do own the idea behind this story. No flames. Not every story is funny or happy. I apologize for nothing.
The song that inspired the mood is, I believe, called Dancing by Elisa.
Enjoy. Love, Sai-Chan.
The night was cold, like death. Darkness filled the sky, clouds blocked the moon, yet cast twisted shadows over the world. A wind thrashed around, lifting garbage and leaves and throwing them about the air viciously. The air was heavy with rain, although it hadn't rained in days. Thus everything was heavy and cold and dreary while remaining light and warm and calm that night. And what a night it was, had been, forever would be. An endless dark spot on a life once filled with laughter, cheer, and beautifully morbid humor. The night that would live in infamy inside the soul of the small framed teenage girl who sat on the swing in the park not far from her house, staring at the ground. That night, so pitch black and cold in the middle of fall, so perfectly her mood, that the irony made her weakly smile despite the shiver from the wind that ran down her back.
Lydia raised her head as the wind whispered into her ear words she couldn't comprehend. Icy hands glided over her shoulders, but she was utterly alone. The park was closed, as it had been for the last few months. Ever since the incident that always brought her back to the blood stained swing set and the red pathway behind it. The stains that couldn't be removed from the night six months ago that had torn her away from the bleak, but cheery existence she'd been living in whether at home or not.
The night she'd been raped and viciously mutilated.
A hot, humid night in spring. She'd been waving good bye to a friend and laughing at a joke. Then he'd covered her mouth and slammed her into the ground. She'd fought, scratched, kicked, and sobbed as he gagged her with a sock and pinned her down. He'd been huge, so heavy, so hot, so massive, so painful. He'd shoved himself inside her, nearly broke her hips with the pressure of his weight on her. The tears wouldn't stop, the shaking just got worse. Then he was pounding on her chest and she was choking on the blood that was spilling into her mouth. The gag grew thicker and thicker, the air turned hazy and he entered her again. She'd tried to call out but only retched and blacked out. When she came to, years could have passed. She struggled, ripped the gag out, and threw up all over the ground. She emptied herself again and again, sobbing and sticky with blood. But he was still there and he cracked her in the back with something metal. She called out a name, once, twice, and then he slit her throat wide open with a pocket knife. Blood splattered the pathway as she stumbled forward, hands slipping in the liquid. Her hands gripped the swing set pole as she collapsed and he overtook her. The metal something crashed into her skull, her head hit the pole, and then there was nothing.
There had been nothing for the past six months. Lydia had been in a coma, lying helpless on a hospital bed, from the moment her father had come upon her sliced up body to that morning when she'd awoke to her mother reading her a poem from one of her old books. She's been told the man had stabbed her arms and legs several times, then pierced the side of her neck once more, before fleeing. She'd come so close to dying, no one was quite sure how she'd survived. However, the blows to her head had knocked her into a coma. That morning, she'd awoken and found herself trapped in a world she couldn't escape and didn't understand.
After hours of paperwork, getting released, and taken to a cautious home desperate to make her better, she'd just run away. Now she was swinging gently outside on a freezing evening at the very spot she'd been raped. Someone else would've been afraid. She was content and just looked around, at the old tree called Spooky and the play sets and thought about the man she'd been saying good bye to that evening months before.
He was her best friend. They'd been friends since she was eleven. Best friends for five years, constantly together. He wasn't of this world. He lived in a world disconnected from reality, full of things wicked and dark and gloomy. Skeletons and spiders and slime and fun filled adventures to strange lands. That's what she'd been up to the day she lost everything. Visiting a world she wanted to belong to, but couldn't until death, with a man who guarded her as though she was the most precious gift ever given. That man. The one in the black and white striped suit, with the kind smile and detached head. The one she'd tried to call for when she'd been raped.
How she wanted to see him now that she was awake again. If there was anyone who could ease the agony she felt every time she looked between her legs, she knew it was him. He could crack a joke or something and hold her while the tears that seemed unable to form ran down her cheeks. He could take off his jacket and drape it over her shoulders to protect her from the cold. He could kiss her scars, use his magic to dress the wounds up. He could take her away from that bloody park. He could take her to that world of his and get her a cup of hot milk and keep her safe. He could tell her if the man who'd destroyed her was being punished for his crimes. He could make everything all better and all she had to do was say his name three times. He'd be there in a flash, with a 'Babes' and a 'Lyds' and a striped suit.
He'd be there. If only she could remember his name.
The crack to her skull had dislodged her memory. Slowly, during the course of the day, things had come back to her. Yet, some things remained out of her grasp. His name was one of them. She could picture him, the world he'd come from, but his name vanished in a puff of smoke before materializing on her tongue. She could taste it, knew how it would roll off her tongue, feel her mouth opening to say it, but it didn't come. It never came.
The fact alone made her quiver and gasp in fear, in terror, of facing her ugly new word without him. There, on the swing, her stomach heaved and she felt tears on her cheeks. Lydia couldn't bring herself to shed a tear over what had happened to her, but she could over a life without him. Five years with him, and his name alluded her. Yes, she couldn't recall how she met him and many of her memories with him were only half completed, but to not remember his name? That caused her heart to ache, for she knew clearer then anything that saying that name three times was the only way to call him, to release him from that world. It was the only way to form the door that connected their worlds. The only way. And she couldn't perform the magic. She couldn't say his name.
A tear dripped to the sand. Lydia mouthed words, but they weren't right. Her hands flew to her mouth, covering it, as her body bent double and she cried out wordlessly for help. Without those words, however, she was alone in that darkness. Thus, she was wrapped in darkness, in cold, alone, and she could only cry. The black streaks poured down her white cheeks like the stripes on his suit and fell to the ground. Agony was all that lingered in her mind, the sheer agony of a life alone. Completely alone.
There was no hope for her now, she knew. Her friends had gone on with their lives. They'd been too fickle to wait for her to waken and rise, new and fine. Her parents were filled with guilt for letting her go out that night. They didn't know what to do with her. The only family that she'd been able to talk to had been her best friend in costume. Therefore, there was no hope. No one understood her and those who somewhat had couldn't deal with the scars and the trauma and the fear she now possessed. He had been the one who understood her, who helped her through her problems. She knew he was watching her, trying to get to her, and still his name floated in the back of her dazed mind, hidden in all the fog.
She had searched her memories for that name upon realizing he was the only one she could turn to. Hours of trying to dissect broken, blended memories of a world she was confused about. What was real? What was a dream? Or was it all real and only her botched memory ruined the moments with him and his shape shifting self? Could she recall something so tiny as a name when overwhelmed by all the blank spots and bewilderment? She'd assumed it would've been easy. Surely she could remember something as important as his name. But it was like someone had taken a black permanent marker and etched over every mention of his name, making it impossible to tell what was it and what belonged to someone else. She'd tried every name she could think of, even her own. All had failed. She had been left sobbing on her bed, clutching a brooch he'd given her on their one year friendship anniversary. The card for the gift had read 'To Lyds, Love BJ'. BJ. His initials, she knew. What they stood for, though, she knew not.
But how could she have forgotten? Had she not said them so many times? Truly, when she'd woken up, she'd thought that if there was one thing she wouldn't have forgotten, it was that name. The doctors had asked her questions and concluded that she was fine. She had no more issues and, as far as they knew, no brain damage. How could she inform them that the most important piece of information to her soul alluded her? They didn't even know he was real. So, she'd gone home and torn apart her room, looking for his name. Nothing said it. He signed everything in his initials. There was no record of it. Why should thereof been? How could she have known this would happen? That one day, she'd wake up and not know that name? The meaning of 'BJ'? But, more then that, why only that one word? Her memories of him were damaged, but nothing else was. Why?
Sitting there, near the tree he'd moved for her, she knew the answer. Someone from his world had tried to dive inside her brain and erase him from her memory. Erase his way to her world, his way to cause mischief. A far fetched idea, but one that made sense to her. Absolute sense. The only way to punish him was to make sure he couldn't escape to her. And they had gone so low as to use her attack as a way to get inside her. They'd taken their opportunity and did what they thought was a thorough job. But the only thing they'd taken was his name.
She still had her memories, broken as they were. And there was one memory in particular that they hadn't been able to touch. It's damage had been her own, not the handiwork of a third party. If she could face it, if she could remember what it felt like, then she would be able to find his name. She'd said it twice that evening, and had thought it countless times. It was all over that night, if she could go back six months to that night, could face her greatest demon.
The night she was raped.
Closing her eyes, Lydia rose to her feet and turned around. When she opened her eyes, she was facing that red spot splashed across the walkway behind the swing set. Beginning to shake harder, she stepped over and into the stained area. Had she been standing there when he slit her throat? Or when he raped her? Where had she been when he beat her? A few steps to the right or in front? What was the blood from inside her and what was from her throat? He'd stabbed her at the swing set, right? Had it started here and she just hadn't noticed? Where had she been when she threw up? In the grass, correct? All those questions flooded to the surface as she gripped her dress and took in a shaky breath. Could she go back to that night when the questions about it scared her body numb?
For him, she would try.
Focusing, she found herself in tears as it began to replay like an old, faded movie, unfolding at the spot she stood. That night, that hot, humid night in the dark as the stars appeared in the heavens and the last bit of daylight trickled away. Right before she walked the few feet to Spooky to get on her bike and head home for a night developing photographs in the basement. She waved good bye and then it happened, so quickly, yet in slow motion.
He'd grabbed her face with both hands. Yes, both hands. Those hands were so huge, the fingers so large. Her jaw had felt like it was bending in the wrong direction. He'd said something. Words. Warnings. She hadn't heard them, because she was trying to open her mouth to bite him and kick backwards at the same time. There was a moment before he threw her on the ground that her feet weren't touching anything. Then he slammed her down. How? He... he... he lifted her by her face and then knocked his body weight down. He'd fallen on her. That's why he'd been able to stuff the sock into her mouth. Yes, that was right. She'd been gasping and choking and trying to say that name. Then her mouth was full and a disgusting taste made her vomit inside her throat, unable to properly retch. That's when her vision had gotten hazy, white spots everywhere.
In the fall wind, she covered her mouth. Then, in the sticky, immensely hot dark, she'd clawed at the cement as he plunged inside her. The pain, the pain, it ripped through her and she'd screamed, hadn't she? No. No. That was when she couldn't scream. She'd just cried and cried and cried and threw up again, choking on it. Her mind had become fuzzy and she'd blacked out somewhere around there. Yes, after he began to hit her in the chest. It'd hurt so bad. The misery had consumed her right before everything disappeared. But, in her mind, she called out that name. That name. That name. Bee... Bee... something... she had cried out inside and then blacked out.
The man wasn't there when she came to. That night, in the cold, Lydia looked to the right, to the grass, as, in her memory, she pulled the gag out and emptied her stomach on the green, green grass. There had been so much pain. So much. So very much that she gasped while freezing in the fall wind. Then, back in Hell's heat, she had heard him coming and had been struck with something metal. Her vision... hadn't it blacked? Yes, but, in desperation, she scrambled to her feet and tried to run. He was so big, though, and he grabbed hold of her arm. His grip was hot, like the air, and she knew she wasn't going to escape. There was no gag this time, though, and she'd called out that name. Once, twice, but then, then, he pulled out that knife. It had been in her field of vision for only a second, and then... there was no more pain. It had... had... had... slit her throat open.
Her hands ran over the vicious scars on her neck, her eyes alone looking to the swing set on her left. Why had she gone that way? Why not towards her bike? Oh yes, he'd been blocking the way. He'd been there... laughing... as her blood poured out, all over her dress and she reached out for the man in the striped suit. But she'd only said his name twice... she had to say it one more time... her hands gripped the swing set... one more time... Lydia pushed her fingertips into the scars, her eyes widening, as she turned her entire body to face the swing set she had slipped down and held onto as her mouth had opened, blood dripping out, right before she'd been hit in the head.
Beetlejuice.
His name was Beetlejuice. Beej. BJ. Betty Juice. Mr. Beetleman. Cousin BJ. The ghost with the most from the Neitherworld. She had opened her mouth to say Beetlejuice when she had been smacked with something metal and hit the pole she'd been holding onto for dear life that night. There, in fall, she knew it was true. The very thought of it brought to life all the memories that someone had tried to rid her of. The emotions of absolute fear and devastation at that moment when she realized he was her only hope at surviving. Had he been able to keep her alive? Had he come? Had she been able to call him? Or had he come against his curse and that was why she had been rid of her memories? Did it matter? She knew his name, knew it better then she'd ever known anything in her life. It was so perfectly clear in the moment, in the memory, of her last moments in her old life. Beetlejuice. That was what she was trying to will herself to say as the blood made her grip weak and the metal had crashed down into her head and caused her to slam into the pole. That was it. That was the name.
All she had to do was say it three times. Then her misery would be lifted. He could come, he could save her, once and for all. Only he could. Only he could. Only Beetlejuice could. Lydia knew that as she spun to face the cloudy sky and it's hidden moon, spreading her scared and battered arms out. Tears of joy ran down her face as she opened her mouth, her body shaking all over again. Finally, finally, he could hold her. Finally, he could save her. She cried out to the sky, to the world, and the next, that name so he could finally save her.
Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice.
There was no sound. Her body stopped shaking, her tears freezing on her face. The entire world went still, as her lips shook and her fingers ran over the scars on her neck. Hadn't her vocal cords been damaged when that man had ravaged her body after she'd blacked out? When she'd been trying to remember Beetlejuice's name, hadn't the doctors told her that she would never be able to speak again? Had they?
Lydia fell to her knees, hands squeezing her throat. She would never speak again. She could never say his name again. She could never call him to her world. She would never see him again. She would never hear him again. She would never feel him again. Without his name, he couldn't come to her. Without her voice, she couldn't say his name. He was trapped in his world. There was no one who would believe her story, who would say his name for her. Her parents, if they found out she'd been seeing him, would forbid anyone who might say it for her from seeing her ever again. There was no one to ask the favor, anyway. They had all abandoned her, leaving her with no way to summon him from the Neitherworld. It had been up to her and she had no voice.
All she could then was cry. Cry because she knew on the other side of the air in front of her, Beetlejuice was crying. Cry because she knew he'd been screaming his name, trying to be heard, trying to get to her. Cry because he was right there and there was nothing she could do to reach him, to release him. Cry because they would never be together again.
Lydia collapsed to the ground, to the blood stained pathway, and sobbed into her arms. Hands of the ghost ran over her shoulders in the wind. She felt an icy chill that must of been his kiss on her cheek. His good bye to his Lydia, his Lyds, his Babes. And then there was nothing. Just the stillness of the night, the cold, cold night, as Beetlejuice was forced to leave her there. He'd left her for the first time in her life. Left her forever. And she knew he wasn't there any longer, and she sobbed to no one, no one at all.
She was left with only her memories that cold night in fall.
End.