3Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. This iteration of the characters belongs to Scott Brown and Anthony King. Thanks Rob McClure, Kerry Butler and Sophia Anne Caruso for bringing them to life (death?) onstage. I've never seen it, but there's something about the OBC recording...
"Can you believe that guy?" Adam Maitland was fuming. Barbara sat on top of a pile of boxes, watching her husband pace. She'd never seen him so worked up before. Her fingers clenched the white bedsheet she'd been hiding under earlier, turning her knuckles white. Or, whiter. She had noticed she looked a lot paler now that she was…
Dead. It still didn't feel real to say that word. Especially not with the emotions she was experiencing right now.
"Honestly. What an ass-what a jerk!" If he could have, Adam would've been wearing holes in the attic floorboards.
Thank God they couldn't actually fall through them anymore.
They'd known Lydia Deetz, what, like a half hour? Maybe it was the fact that she was the only person besides Beetle…Beetlejoos? Beetle….Barbara had been too terrified while the purple-haired, green-tinged demon had been spelling his name out for them, anyway, that could see her and Adam? Or that she was so young? Or Lydia's story, that her mother was dead and her father was so in denial over it that he ignored his only family he had left? Something motherly was stirring in Barbara Maitland. It was feeling she'd never known if she was ever going to feel. But she could feel it. It was making her want to hug Lydia and tell her it was all going to be okay.
It was also making her want to slug Charles Deetz.
Apparently, she wasn't the only one who felt that way. "Adam," she called out to her husband. If he could have been red in the face, he probably would have been. Don't think that can happen if your heart's not actually beating-God was this being dead thing confusing!
Adam was still pacing, swearing half-hearted curse words under his breath, like he was trying to protect her ears from the language. "Adam!" Barbara yelled.
Adam froze in his tirade, spinning around to face her. "What?" he barked. His eyes went wide and his hands flew to his mouth as Barbara shrank back, just a little. "God, Barbara, I-" He ran his hands over his face and through his hair. "I…sorry. I'm sorry. I just, I can't believe that someone would….according to Lydia, she hasn't even been gone that long, and he's….If you ever died, I probably wouldn't ever get married aga…" He trailed off, realizing what he'd just said by the sad look on his wife's face. He bit his lip, took a breath, and came to sit down next to her.
"This sucks," he proclaimed, and Barbara choked out a laugh as she leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Yeah, it does," she agreed. "I mean, us being dead, but also, poor Lydia, you know? I can't imagine how she must feel right now. The look on her face…"
Adam glanced down to see tears streaming down his wife's face. "Oh. Honey." He kissed the top of her forehead, pulled her to him. "Hey. It's all right. I feel the same way."
"Why?" Barbara whispered.
Adam frowned. "I don't know…I mean, I guess with his wife being gone, it's sort of natural, maybe, that he'd try to find someone to fill the gap?"
"Not that," Barbara countered. "Why do we feel like this? We barely know Lydia, but I just..."
"Oh. That." Adam was silent, contemplating. He wrapped his arms around his knees. "It was weird," he said finally. "I've never felt that strongly about anything-except maybe marrying you."
"I know," Barbara said with an embarrassed smile. "I thought it was pretty hot, watching you just now."
"Really?" Adam gasped, feeling something in him swell with pride. Then he coughed. "Um, anyway. I just, I wanted to put him through the wall for doing that to Lydia."
He turned to Barbara. "Is that what it's like?" he questioned.
"What what's like?"
"Being a dad?" He rested his chin on his arms. "That feeling like you'd put someone through a wall for making your kid cry?"
Barbara was quiet. "I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, we never….so I don't…I feel the same way. Like I want to hug her and whisper in her ear that it's all going to be okay and protect her from whatever's making her sad…" She looked up at her husband. "Is that what it feels like to be a mom?"
"Maybe," Adam said. "I'd like to think so, I guess."
"I want to help her," Barbara decided. "I mean, I don't know how we can do that, we're not, you know, we can't hug her or take her shopping or whatever it is you do in this situation, but…" She stood up. "She just seems like a great kid. I can't just hide in the attic."
"No, you're right. We should go find her." Adam took Barbara's hand. "We can at least tell her we're here, if she ever needs us. I mean we're not her pa-" He trailed off, his voice catching. That word…it's something we'll never be.
Barbara squeezed his hand. "She needs a friend more than anything right now," she suggested quietly.
Adam nodded. "We can do that."
Ready…set...
Above them, they heard footsteps on the roof. Adam looked at Barbara.
"Lydia," she breathed. Her eyes widened in panic. "Oh God, Adam, what if-"
He was already popping the window open. "Come on!" Adam urged her, reaching back for her hand. "Let's go!"
Now wasn't the time to hem and haw and wait around, like they'd done with so many other things in their life. They'd just met Lydia. No way were they about to lose her now.
Fin.
Author's Note: So, I'd like to maybe turn this into a two or three-short eventually. But I'll mark it as complete for now.
