Summary: "I'll always need you," she had said, and Sarah was many things, but she was not a liar. A one-shot about friends and love and the best kind of neediness.
Disclaimer: I own none of the rights to the parent creation of this bit of fancy. A bouquet of roses to Jim Hensen and all of his.
Author's Note: I wrote this in class one day. It looks much better on paper.
Need
"I'll always need you," she said, and Sarah was many things, but she was not a liar. She would always need them, she thought, as she turned to run into their arms.
She needed them growing up, to hear her secrets and fill her days with mischief. As the proud, entitled teen grew to a headstrong, certain young woman, she relied on her evanescent friends not to support her, but to guide her, to simply be with her. Their presence was enough for her. Her first, hesitant human friends were goblin-approved and said goblins would be up and waiting for her to return safely and happily from nights of fun, with ire in their eyes if she happened to be neither.
"You are gaining in popularity, my lady," Didymus said, speaking in low tones as he watched her from his vantage point high on the cabinet. A sad note entered his nasally voice. "Soon, you won't have time to waste cavorting with goblins."
Sarah had been halfway through macaroni, but she dropped everything. Her heart squeezed at the thought of having to leave her friends behind. She turned to him and spoke in a sure voice that no longer sounded so young. "I'll always have time for you, Didymus. All of you. I promise it." She smiled, reaching out to rub the nearest ear. "You're my friends. My best friends."
He sputtered and flailed, but shortly the kitchen filled with what sounded suspiciously like purring.
When she graduated, they were there, hiding conspicuously in the back row. A few socks and handmade flags were waved in the air behind everyone's heads, and Sarah's spirits soared. They took every excuse to party, so she got home to loud singing and dancing in her bedroom. The goblins celebrated the event as wholeheartedly as she, even if they didn't really understand why.
Sarah had a fear, an irrational fear, that in moving out she would grow up and have to leave them behind for whatever young girl moved in after her. But if the owl lounging comfortably in her apartment window didn't allay her fears, the socks and scarves left by careless goblins who were right at home did the trick. Her first meal away from home wasn't as traumatic as she'd expected when she was surrounded by familiar faces, but she still ended up crying herself to sleep.
Her days were filled with not-quite solitude, for once it had become clear that they were welcomed, there was always at least one goblin around. Perhaps it was her or perhaps it was just the allure of another world and a hapless and forgiving victim for pranks. Whatever it was, her life was never boring.
Reigning them in at her wedding had been a hassle that ended up being more trouble than it was worth. No matter what she said, Hoggle remained convinced that it had been their mischief that had caused her marriage to fall apart. She eventually settled for a half-hearted bargain that they could make it up to her by helping her with her son. Jared was a handful from the very beginning, but she never wished, even in private, for him to be taken away. He seemed to have his own way with the goblins, conversing with them more freely than she was able to as the years rolled on.
As Jared grew older, Sarah had less time to spare. She still greeted the owl on the step every morning, still left gravy out for Didymus every Saturday night, and still read a chapter a night before bed. But her nights were spent with her son, not with her friends. She had to stare so very hard into a mirror to see them, and she wondered with a thrill if perhaps she really didn't need them anymore.
When Jared moved out, Sarah sat in front of her mirror and strained her tear-stained eyes. She tried her best to find any moving shadows with yellowish eyes. She looked a mess, still shaky and jumping at every sound. The house felt so big and she felt so alone and she needed someone.
"Hoggle?" she called uncertainly, her voice different from the childlike trembling note it had been before. "Ludo…Didymus…?"Her eyes slid to the window but saw no white form alighted on the branch. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her knees to her chest. She let the tears fall and she dared to think 'I need you.'
A large hand wrapped about her shoulder. "Oh, Sarah…we're always here, you know…you don't have to cry about it."
It would later be remembered as one of the happiest moments of her life.
Jared called often and was relieved when his mother didn't fall apart without him. He remembered dark figures in his room and mirror, little unexplainable happenstances over the years, and he knew she wasn't alone.
Years carried on and Sarah's need never faded. Her body grew weak and her hair grew silver. Her smile grew only brighter. She wrote, when she got older, of things that toed the line between worlds and things that were never quite what they seemed. She made more money, lived life again, and even still she needed them.
Beep.
Sarah's fingers shook as she held the small red book in her hands. Her life had been wonderful. It still would be, she thought. As she flipped through the pages, her tired face smiled and she recalled every danger and invisible turn, and thought how wonderfully labyrinthine life was.
She finally laid her head back, her eyes half-closed. It was coming now. She felt it. Her last corner…the end of the Labyrinth.
"I wonder…"
Sarah closed her eyes. "I wish…I wish the goblins would take me away…right now…"
Sarah opened her eyes and she smiled.