Ok, I don't own these characters or the world. Those belong to Tim Burton and to Geffin Film Co. But I do love them and this is my little attempt to write about them.

"1,844,321,343,374,239,432,837,050,209,742,342!" called the blue-green beauty behind the glass wall. She sneered when the man with dirty blonde hair, dirty striped suit, and well, dirty everything came to the window.

"Hiya babes"

"I am NOT your babes." She said in a cool, precise tone, thick with distain. She took his ticket from his hand and pointed to a door in the wall next to her. "Juno will see you now."

The man straightened his suit and made for the door. "Thanks babes, call me if ya ever want me to tell ya how to get out of that box. I'm sure we can work out some way for ya to thank me later…"

A glittering red stiletto heel hit the wall next to his head, and he ducked quickly through the door. He found himself facing an industrial metal desk of the sort seen in government offices the world over and after. Behind the desk sat an older woman, a cigarette in her hand, the smoke leaking from the slit in her throat. Her eyes fixed coolly on him as he walked in and she motioned him wordlessly to a seat across from her.

He turned the chair around, straddling it and leaning on the back, head on crossed arms. "Junie, Baby! Long time no see!" an insincere grin stretched his features unnaturally.

"Come off it beetle-brain, you're no happier to see me than I am to see you. Frankly if I could have I would have kept you locked up permanently and never seen you again. Do you know the amount of work you caused me cleaning up the mess you made with that Deetz girl? Not only paperwork but field work and filing. It's taken me nearly ten years to clear it all up. And now that it's all done, you are getting out and will no doubt cause me no end of new trouble to deal with."

"Aww I'm not that bad! Besides, I'm a reformed man! You don't have to worry about me!"

The woman cut him off with a look and a chop of her red manicured hand. "Shut it. That is what you said last time and you know what happened then."

"It was such a beautiful wedding…" he sniffed and wiped a dramatic tear from his eye, then blew his nose loudly into his handkerchief.

"She was sixteen, you idiot!"

"And who was it that erased her memory of her best friend so that the only way I had to get back to her was that?"

"Marriage?" Her eyes were wide and her face incredulous.

He cleared his throat and pulled a large, brown, dusty, tome and a pair of glasses from thin air, opening the book and reading aloud in a deep and authoritative voice. "Ahem… 'Whosoever shall marry the living shall at once be granted all rights pertaining to the living state and shall be able to lawfully traverse between worlds at will. So too shall the living spouse be able to traverse the veil and shall likewise have all rights and responsibilities held by one of the dead.' Had the wedding gone through I would have been able to get her back her memory and things could have been just like they used t' be."

"You and your god damn Julliard education. Where the hell did you find that out?"

He held up the book so she could see the title.

"I should have known… the corrected version of Dante's Inferno…"

He snorted. "Yea, man he had egg on his face when he got down here" After Dante had arrived he had gone on to correct his masterwork it had become the authoritative book on the rules and laws of the dead. The Egyptians had not been amused.

"Be it as it may, Beatle, the wedding did not go through, and I forbid you to see that girl again."

"How ya gonna stop me, Toots?"

"With this…" Juno grabbed his arm and snapped a bracelet around his wrist. He stared at it dumbfounded.

"What the hell is this?"

"You get within ten feet of Miss Deetz and you lose all of your powers. You can do nothing to her and you will gradually fade from being if you stay near her too long. Do you hear me? You will be exorcised by her very presence. "

He gaped at the bauble and back up at his former mentor. "You can't do this to me"

'I can and I have. Consider it the terms of your parole, Beatle. I would say it was nice seeing you again, but that would be a lie. Goodbye."

"Hey wait, can't I appeal or something? What can I do? Please, Juno! Baby! I can't live like this! I promised the kid I wouldn't leave her! I told her I'd be there for her!

"You've never worried about keeping your promises before. Not keeping that one should cause you no trouble at all."

"Yer killin' me Junes!"

"You're already dead." She pushed the button on her desk. "Send in my next appointment please."

"Juno! I'm beggin' ya!" he fell to his knees and grabbed her leg in supplication

She looked down on him and a strange light flickered in her eyes. "Ok… you can have one more chance to do right by the girl. On three conditions."

He looked up at her with hope and nodded.

"One, that bracelet stays on; ensuring no powers and that you can't spend more than ten hours in her company at a time safely. Two, you will only be allowed into the mortal world for a set amount of time. You will be given three months to get things done. And three… you will go… as a woman. "

"What!"

"You heard me. You will go as a woman"

"Why?"

"I don't want you getting romantically entangled with this girl, Beatle. And since she is not attracted to women, so far as I know, you being one will drastically reduce the possibilities of that."

"Waiiiitttt… you're afraid I would try to…. With LYDS? Yeeeuukk!"

"She's not a little girl anymore, Beatle. It's been ten years. She's a woman now, and I won't have you messing up her life."

"Ok, fine, I'll do it." His face was grim, determined looking. For a moment Juno worried that she had made a misjudgment in allowing him even what she had. He shook her hand and on the final pump of his arm a poof of smoke enveloped him. Suddenly in his place stood a blonde woman in a striped skirt suit. Her long blonde hair was held back in a conservative swirl and tiny metallic beetles hung from her earrings. Her red painted lips curled into a sarcastic smile. "how ya like me now Junie?." Her voice was husky but not unattractive, with a hint of a southern California accent. Her green eyes flickered with amusement.

"Get out of my office before I change my mind, Beetle."

With that he, or rather, she, disappeared, leaving Juno to slump in her chair and wonder if she had just made the biggest mistake of her afterlife.