The Girl in the Mirror: a Beetlejuice fanfic

The Nickname Thing

Letting both of the Lydias go out on their own had been a hard decision for Charles and Delia to make when Adam and Barbara let them know. Yet still, they thought it was fine after quite a bit of discussion and soon both Lydias were out the door and starting on their way towards the town. Or, rather, the cemetery first. Lydia pushed open the cemetery's iron gate, leading her alternate self inside and not even bothering to close it as soon as she did so.

Was a cemetery even a good place to test out the first of their theories? Both Lydia and her alternate self were about to find out.

Alternate Lydia moved towards the back of the cemetery, propping herself against one of the graves in the far right corner and focusing her attention over towards other her as she did the exact same thing and propped herself against the fence at the back of the cemetery not too far from where her alternate self was.

Their first theory, a simple telekinesis thing. Lydia had, quietly so that they didn't confuse any and all passersby, explained everything to her alternate self as they'd made their way up the path and towards the cemetery. And still, despite the two of them having equal doubts as the other was that this was going to work, in their minds, they both had a feeling that it was.

After all, both Lydias had it in mind that it was going to work. It just had to.

Both Lydias' eyes widened and they turned to look at one another again with equal stunned looks. So, it did work as they had hoped? It seemed that way. But both Lydias seemed like that one time was just pure luck. Er, well... another go could confirm things for real for the two of them.

"Well... that's certainly interesting alright," Lydia said, grinning softly at her alternate self and noticing her doing the same thing. Albeit her grin was much bigger. "Wanna try it again?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth, other me," alternate Lydia replied, letting out an amused laugh. "What're you thinking?"

"Well," Lydia said. "You'll have to connect with me via your mind to find out."

"Maybe we should just head back to your house for now," alternate Lydia replied, starting to feel a little uncertain about all of this. "See if your Maitlands can consult the Handbook for the Recently Deceased and see if there's a way we can connect to one another via our minds. I mean, after those nightmares we had last night, I think it's going to be a lot easier for the two of us to connect to one another through things like that."

"I think that we just happened to have similar nightmares at the exact same time, alternate me. I don't think it had something to do with our minds being connected. And can I call you Lyds from now on?" Lydia asked, a curious yet amused look in her eyes. "I'm starting to get tired of calling you alternate me."

"Lyds is fine with me," Lyds joked, side glancing at Lydia. "So as long as I get to give you a nickname in return."

'And what do you have in mind as a nickname for me, Lyds?' Lydia asked via her mind and figuring that this should be how they conversed from now until they went to test out the next of their few theories, lightly punching Lyds in the arm just as soon as the latter moved over towards the fence at the back of the cemetery and sat upon it not too far from where Lydia was sat.

'Well,' Lyds replied through her mind, tapping a finger against the bottom of her chin as she did so. 'I was thinking maybe.... Lidi?'

'Lidi, huh?' Lydia said, laughing via her mind. 'I'll go with that.'

Lydia jumped off of the fence, moving off a little to the side in order to allow Lyds to do the same thing. Although Lyds still seemed to be a little nervous, a little encouragement from Lydia was more than enough to make her not as nervous enough to jump off the fence as well and move off to the side to join Lydia.

Following Lydia out of the cemetery, Lyds started to feel hungry. Moving so that she was walking beside Lydia, Lyds nudged the former in the shoulder and lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Y'know, I am a little hungry... is there anything lunch related in this time that wasn't in my time that I could possibly try?"

Lydia looked at her, thinking to herself for a brief few moments. "Well, we could head back to my house and have lunch. Then we can head back out into town and test out the next of our theories. Does that sound like a good idea, Lyds?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth, Lidi... again." Lyds covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a quiet but still apparent snicker.

Them stepping through the front door of the house brought a great deal of concern to all four of the adults, considering the fact that not one of the four of them had been expecting either one of the two girls back for at least a little while longer. Originally, they'd allowed them to head out with the assumption that their Lydia was going to take alternate Lydia to try some food at one of the newer restaurants that hadn't been around in the time of the latter of the two girls.

Barbara, in the middle of preparing lunch that day with help from Delia, turned towards both of the girls just as soon as they'd stepped into the kitchen.

"You two are back early," Barbara amusingly commented, letting loose a laugh as she turned to face them completely. "Did you guys testing out the first of your theories not work the way you two thought it would?"

"No." Lydia shared a look with Lyds, then turned her head and focused her attention back over towards Barbara with a sheepish look. "Lyds said she was hungry, so we decided to come back here to have lunch and then we were going to head back out to test out the next of our theories. Our 'telekinesis' theory worked, so we hope our other theories work as well as it. We don't know what we're going to do if they don't."

"Well." Barbara snapped her fingers and made whatever she and Delia had been making for lunch onto four plates instead of two like was planned and levitated them over to the kitchen table. "We allowed it on the implication that you guys were going to eat out, but I guess that's fine too... wait, you've given each other nicknames now?"

"Yeah," Lydia said, nudging Lyds. "I'm going to refer to her as Lyds from now on and she's going to refer to me as Lidi. And I think you guys should do the same."

"Well..." Barbara looked off to the side briefly, resting a hand under her chin. "That's good, I guess. It'll make differentiating between you two easier from now on. But we're going to have to discuss it with the others over lunch."

She did. And, the whole nickname thing Lydia brought up totally was a good idea. The other three adults of the Maitland-Deetz family and Beetlejuice seemed to think so.