A/N: A Valentine's Day special! (And tomorrow's my birthday, so leave me a pretty review... ;D) Submitted this just under the wire - I hope. Shouldn't be horribly long a few chapters or so, unless a big long plot makes it's self known. Anyways, have fun with it. And stop mocking my corny titles, you. -waves a finger admonishingly-
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Sarah was nearly twenty-five when she came to the realization. She'd been sitting at the kitchen table of her small, functional flat, staring into her coffee. Sarah was the sort of person who drank coffee no matter what hour it was, and was nearly immune to it's effects. She'd been, as usual, thinking deep thoughts and reminiscing. That was what kitchen tables and delicate cups of coffee were there for, really.
"This is stupid," she announced aloud to the empty flat. "This is stupid," she repeated again. "I am almost twenty-five years old. I am a grown woman, I am an adult. I will handle this in an adult manner. He's just a man, really, when you come down to it. And I'm a woman. We're on equal footing here. Really. I'm being absolutely childish."
She said this, really, to reassure herself more than because she truely believed it. For the past seven or so years, something had been mutating in Sarah's mind. When she first came back from the Labyrinth, it was just a seed of an idea, quashed quite firmly by common sense, logic, and what have you. By the time she was eighteen, she could admit, to herself at least, that what the Goblin King, what Jareth, had said during their last encounter had obviously held some meaning. It wasn't long after that she began to harbor sympathy for the strange man, who really hadn't done anything so horrible as she'd built him up to be. Sure, he'd taken Toby, but she'd wished him away. And while the Labyrinth might have seemed nigh' impossible for a girl of fifteen, at eighteen she realised that while it was hard, and took courage, she'd never actually been in real danger the whole time, except of losing her brother - which was more her fault than his, anyways. And then she'd done... whatever it was she'd done in the end. It really wasn't, to quote her younger self, fair.
Once she'd admitted to herself that Jareth wasn't as bad as she thought he was, and that she'd never really given him a fair shake, it wasn't long before the deeply surpressed infatuation she'd always held for him came back. Nibbling on the edge of her conscous at first, it had become a full-fledged, out-and-out crush by the time she was twenty-two. By twenty-four, she was quite positive that if she didn't get to see him or talk with him, or something to figure out... whatever it was she needed to figure out, she'd go positively mad. After that, it was merely a matter of mustering the courage, forming a battle plan, and getting ahold of him.
Easier said than done, at least on the first two accounts. She still didn't have a clue as to how to go about this, and she was quite set in the fact that she was going to call him before her twenty-fifth birthday, in four days.
"Haha, adult. 'Yes, would you like a cup of tea, and by the way, I have a crush on you.' Horribly adult, of course. And who even says crush past tenth grade?" She gave her cup of coffee a rueful sip. It seemed that Jareth left her feeling still like an awkward fifteen-year-old. Or maybe it was just romance in general, which she'd had no real practice in. She'd had a few dates, but she'd never had a serious boyfriend, nor had she particularly wanted one. All the men she met seemed to lacking some certain sort of... depth. Well, not really depth, but... something. Some little spark that only one man held, and when he held it, it was a fire - a fire that he controlled
"Maybe," she began again, a new option coming to her quickly. "Maybe I should say something along the lines of wanting to chat with old friends, and not wanting to be enemies anymore... after all, that's true enough. I'd like to be his friend, I think. I think I'd like that very much." The idea did have merit. Not only was it mature and adult, it also didn't give too much away.
He might not have ever even liked her. After all, it'd been a long time since she'd traversed the Labyrinth, and he'd only shown anything besides snide arrogance or hostility twice.. once in the drug-induced ball, where there had been calculated false warmth, but also... something, even deeper than that, which she could never quite pick out of her blurry memories, but suspected was important. And then, the final confrontation... he'd looked desparate, beseeching. Just trying to make sure he wasn't beaten at his own game? Or something else? She could never figure it out, but if there was a chance it wasn't just manipulation, but something more... then it was worth walking into the lion's den.
"After all, he has no power over me now, right?" she reassured herself, sipping the last of her coffee before putting the dish in the sink and going to bed.
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Jareth didn't watch Sarah too much anymore. She seemed to be getting along quite well in the Aboveground with her normal life and her normal job and her normal house and her normal friends and her normal -
He kicked a goblin. Bah, normal. What a horrible concept, and who came up with the idiotic idea that normal was a good thing? Normal people, most likely.
He'd watched her on occasion when she'd first gone back, watched her go through high-school, and graduate, go through college, and graduate, get a job, get an apartment, everything horribly normal. He curled his lip in distaste. Well, if that was what she really wanted, then fine, she could keep her rotten, boring normal life, and go rot somewhere.
Of course, though this thought often crossed his mind, he rarely managed to stick to it for very long. Sarah was like some magnet that he was drawn to, or some oubliette he just couldn't get out of. He'd tried, of course, but it was no use. And he might as well be in an oubliette, for all she remembered him. 'Oh, yes, that evil Goblin King she'd beaten,' Jareth mimicked snidely in his head.
He kicked another goblin. He wasn't in a horribly good mood tonight, and as such, was being more introspective than he usually allowed himself to be.
Finally, he huffed a sigh, and in a almost violent movement, summoned a crystal to watch her. It was inevitable, no matter how hard he tried to think ill of her, he always ended up watching her anyways, when he should be tossing her into some dark oubliette in the back of his mind.
She was sitting at her table again, even though it was late in her world, sipping that strong concoction she seemed to favor. She did this fairly often, it wasn't the fist time he'd looked in on her to find her in the same position. Eventually she began talking to herself, and he peered into the crystal more closely, to read her lips. She didn't talk to herself often, but when she did, it was usually about something of importance in her life.
'He's just a man, really, when you come down to it. And I'm a woman. We're on equal footing here. Really.'
Jareth narrowed his eyes. Just who was a man, and why was she so worked up about him? He didn't like the sound of this. Sarah had had very few, very normal, very dull dates, and that was exactly the way he liked it - well, he'd have liked it even more if she'd had no dates, but this was the second-best thing. If she were suddenly serious about some mortal... Jareth shuddered. He'd always held a vauge fantasy, a hope in the back of his mind, that maybe, just maybe, someday she'd come back to him. If she chose a husband, he'd no longer have even that. He didn't like the feeling that gave him, like someone had ripped away a thick blanket away and now he was exposed to harsh, cold reality. The Goblin King was not a fan of reality, and tended not to have much to do with it.
'"Yes, would you like a cup of tea, and by the way, I have a crush on you." Horribly adult, of course. And who even says crush past...'
A crush. He growled low in his throat, and the majority of the goblins in the throne room vanished before you could blink. Jareth knew what a crush was, silly Aboveground term. He was a split-second away from terminating the crystal and going off to find something to vent his anger (and some other emotion he refused to label) on, when she opened her mouth once more, thoughtfully.
'After all, he has no power over me now, right...'
For the first time in several centuries, the Goblin King was speechless. He blinked owlishly several times, trying to process this information with what he'd known of Sarah over the past years. It really couldn't be, could it? He snorted indelicately to himself, who else could she be referring to? Slowly, a smile, a real, geniune, if rather predatory smile slid over his face.
She had a crush on him. She was sitting around, talking to herself, trying to figure out what to say to him. He had her flustered, and off-balance.
He, once again, had the upper-hand.
But this time, he would not lose. This time, he would come out on top, firmly in possesion of something far more valuable to him than a smelly, if grudglingly cute baby. Sarah's heart.
"Well then, my dear," he spoke to the now clear crystal before him. "Let the games begin."