Behind the Curtain - Beetlejuice

The Whole "Being Dead" Thing

"You've been gone a while," Barbara said as Dick swung into the flat via the lounge window, "Busy night?"

"Not at all," Dick replied as he gave her a quick peck on the cheek and headed through to the bedroom to change into his day uniform, "Nothing happened last night."

"So what took you so long?" Babs asked as she began to serve up breakfast, "Fall asleep?"

"There was a girl," Dick explained as he threw on his shirt and walked out, buttoning it up, "She was down the back alley near Perend Street, she just sat there. I think she was crying."

"Did you go to help her?" Babs moved through to the dining room where Dick was sat and put down the plates as they dug in.

"No," Dick admitted, "It was odd Babs. I wanted to go down and talk to her, but she just seemed so... so... It was as if she wanted to be alone. I don't know why it felt like that, but she was having a personal moment, I felt like going down would have just scared her off."

"So you just left her to fend for herself on the Blüdhaven streets? You're a truly amazing person."

"I'm going to put a search into our database today," Dick said, "See if I can get up anything about anyone matching her description. I just don't want to scare her off before I can find out what's going on with her. That's all."

"Fine, that's fine," Babs said as she smiled at him around her bacon, "If you do find her and she doesn't have a place to stay though. Give me a call, I'll set up the spare bedroom for her."

"You rock," Dick said as he stood up to leave, "Have I told you that before?"

"Not enough loverboy," She joked, "See you after work."

----------

Dick pulled into work and jumped straight out of the car and into the station.

"Any pressing cases today?" Dick asked as he walked up to the reception where Graheme was on shift.

"Not yet. But you'll be the first to know when something comes up," He said with a smirk and handed Dick his coffee, black with two sugars, just as he liked it.

Dick shook his head as he headed over to his desk and sat at his computer. The old thing took a while to start up as he logged in. In fact, the entire station was old. Blüdhaven police department wasn't taken seriously at all, the amount of crime in the city it was a surprise the station still stood. But not so surprising when you heard the number of dirty cops. The criminals couldn't be caught if they were in power.

And, unfortunately, that's how Blüdhaven works. The only way to escape the corruption of the city, die. Dick took another mouthful of his coffee as the computer screen came up and he searched in the description of the girl. Another couple of minutes later, once the computer had finished searching the files, it came up with nothing. The girl didn't seem to exist.

"What you looking into now?"

Dick turned his head to look at his partner, Detective Grifyn, as he sat down at his desk and started up his computer. He was lucky to have been partnered with Grifyn, one of the few good cops left in the city, and a decent person considering what had happened to him. Dick couldn't help but think of the story every time he saw the burn scars running up his left hand and arm. Firefly had come to town and left his mark, but he was behind bars again for now.

"I thought I saw a young homeless girl this morning on my way to work," Dick explained, "I was wondering if we had any files on her. Nothing."

"What? Were you planning on taking her in?" Grifyn asked and was genuinely surprised when he saw the seriousness on Dick's face, "You were, weren't you? Jesus. I know you and Barbara want a kid, but picking them from the street. Not the best way to go about it."