The Whole Being Alive Thing

Brief Moments of Chaos and Sanity

"Race ya back up the stairs, dumbass of a best friend!" challenged Lydia with a sly smirk plastered on her face and a slight snark within the tone of her voice, looking over towards Betelgeuse - who gave her a matching look.

"You're on!" he responded with a similar tone.

All four adults looked up worriedly at the two of them as they prepared to race each other back upstairs, with Barbara being the one to call out to them. "Careful now, you two! The last thing that we all want is for either one of you guys to get hurt!"

Lydia turned to face her, shrugging. "Relax, Barb. Neither one of us is going to get hurt. We know what we're doing."

All Barbara did in response, however, was raise an eyebrow and cross her arms as an exceptionally unamused but stern look flashed across her face. Same with the rest of the adults of the household, actually. But Lydia and Betelgeuse didn't seem to be paying much attention to that, both of them turning and proceeding to race each other up the stairs. And it wasn't long before all four adults were alerted to the sounds of crashing - followed closely behind by a loud thump and an even louder series of pained noises.

Getting up from where they were sat, all four adults rushed over towards the stairs to find Lydia laying on her back at the bottom of them. Looking up, they caught sight of Betelgeuse leaning over the upstairs banister and looking down towards Lydia and the rest of the Maitland-Deetz family without so much of an apologetic look plastered on his face. Instead, he sported a huge grin on his face.

"Did- did you just push Lydia down the stairs?" Barbara had to ask, a confused look on her face and worry for Lydia present in her voice. She looked from Lydia to Betelgeuse and then back to Lydia before her attention fully focused on Betelgeuse.

"No, she fell down the stairs...." Betelgeuse uttered out, scratching at the back of his neck as he looked from one adult to the other and back then down at Lydia.

"He's lying." Lydia tried to sit herself upright but lay herself back down when the pain from the injury she'd got worsened. "He bumped into me whilst we were racing one another on the stairs and knocked me down them."

All four adults looked at one another, then glanced up towards Betelgeuse with equally as furious looks on their faces. He came down the stairs and came to a stop in front of the four of them, but still didn't either look apologetic or even apologize to Lydia for what he'd done to her. A while passed by without a single word having been spoken by any one of the six of them, and what seemed like a staring contest between the five of them, Barbara was the first to speak up with a heavily annoyed tone.

"Betelgeuse, apologize to Lydia."

He mumbled something under his breath that sounded like it could've been an apology of sorts. But from what he had said earlier, they knew that that wasn't as apologetic as they thought it was.

"Betelgeuse! Apologize NOW!" Charles barked out, gesturing a hand out towards his still injured daughter.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled out quietly, looking away from Lydia.

All four adults crossed their arms and raised their eyebrows in unison.

Betelgeuse glanced over towards the four of them then turned and looked down towards Lydia. Formulating an apology for what happened earlier in his mind was hard, yes, but yet another quick glance over towards an equally angered Adam, Barbara, Charles, and Delia let him know immediately that they were still waiting for him to apologize to Lydia. He looked at Lydia again, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Lydia," he said, louder this time.

Barbara, deeming that better like her fellow adults, bent down next to Lydia, running a hand through the teenager's hair. "Lydia, you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, I'm fine, Barbara. I-."

Lydia tried to sit upright again, this time supported by Adam and Barbara. Both ghosts also snapping their fingers and making Lydia's injuries disappear into thin air - almost like they weren't there to begin with.

"Thanks, Barb. Thanks, Adam," Lydia said giving the ghosts a hug each and standing up again, once more racing each other up the stairs.

All four adults watched them carefully this time, making sure that neither one of the two of them would get hurt. As they both made it to the top of the stairs and were about to head to their rooms, they were stopped by Barbara calling up to them. They turned, leaning over the banister to look down at them.

"Yeah?!" Betelgeuse was the first to say, wondering what else they needed him for.

"Don't we still need to help you out with adjusting to being human? The four of us have been discussing it all morning and I think we figured out how to help you," continued Barbara.

Betelgeuse nodded. He, followed closely behind by Lydia, came back down the stairs - the two of them not doing as much as racing each other down the stairs. They followed Adam, Barbara, Charles, and Delia into the house's living room, sitting down on the couch opposite them. Another brief moment of silence befell the room, not one of the six of them speaking another word. Well, until Barbara spoke up.

"It seems you handled learning to apologize quite quickly. So that's out of the way." Barbara turned her attention over towards her fellow adults. "What should we help him adjust to next? Continue on with helping him adjust to his human state? Help him control his strength?"

"You said it earlier. We should just work on helping him control his strength first. Then help him adjust to being human. That or we could do it the other way around, which would be easier," her husband spoke up, Barbara, Charles, and Delia all nodding in unison and humming their agreement.

"Betelgeuse, what do you think we should help you out with next?" Barbara waited for an answer.

When she got none in response, she, like the rest of the Maitland-Deetz adults, turned her attention over towards the other couch in the room just to find Lydia and Betelgeuse not there. They looked up upon hearing laughter as well as a series of loud banging noises coming from what appeared to be Lydia's bedroom. They turned their attention over towards one another, Barbara opting to be the one who stood up - turning around to face the rest of the adults.

"I'll handle this," she spoke up, the other three adults nodding in response. "But whatever chaos it is they're doing, it can't even be that bad, right?" She made her way over towards the stairs, one thought, that being 'stay sane, Barbara. Stay sane. Barbara 2.0', running through her mind.

She climbed up the last of the stairs, beginning on her way down the hall towards Lydia's bedroom. The door was opened. And Barbara peered inside to find Lydia bouncing on her bed and Betelgeuse currently in the middle of making a mess of Lydia's bedroom. Stuff, not clothes thankfully, was strewn all over the room's floor - Lydia's now broken lamp in pieces in the midst of it all - and Barbara stepped further into Lydia's bedroom, raising an eyebrow and placing her hands on her hips as a clear look of annoyance appeared on her face and she addressed Lydia and Betelgeuse.

"And what do you two think you're doing right now? Also, how, in the last few minutes, did you two manage to get up here so fast without any of us noticing?"

Lydia stopped jumping on her bed, looking over towards Betelgeuse before the two of them looked over towards Barbara with equal looks of confusion on their faces. Eventually, after a while, it was Lydia who provided an answer to Barbara's question.

"Well, Betelgeuse decided that he wanted to race me up the stairs again. And I agreed."

"Well, we're still going to need to help Betelgeuse out with adjusting to his human state and helping him out with getting his strength under control. Now is not the time to be jumping on beds or making messes of rooms. Betelgeuse adjusting to being human is more important right now and we need to focus only on that."

Lydia jumped off her bed, coming to a stop a few feet away from Barbara as the latter of the two females snapped her fingers and made the mess caused by Betelgeuse that was Lydia's bedroom disappear. Betelgeuse moved to stand over near where Barbara and Lydia were standing as well, his attention focusing solely and only onto Barbara.

"So, how long's it going to take to help me adjust to being human?"