Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth. Labyrinth was created by Jim Henson and George Lucas and is copyright by TriStar Pictures, Lucasfilm, Henson Associates, and a slew of other people who are not me.
Inspired by this prompt from a Labyrinth fan-fiction community on livejournal:
Come up to meet you,/ Tell you I'm sorry,/ You don't know how lovely you are./ I had to find you,/ Tell you I need you,/ Tell you I set you apart.
Coldplay
As he approached the looming white house, the Goblin King was beginning to feel very much a fool.
This is ludicrous, he thought irritably. There is no reason for you to be here, so you should just fly back home now before it's too late.
He settled on a branch outside the child's room, pushing aside the tide of pleasant yet unwelcome memories of the child in red stripes just four years ago.
Two years, three hundred sixty-four days, eleven hours, and fifty-three minutes by your time, princess. Nearly three years and not a word. Not so much as a whisper of my name, and yet here I am. While no call had been issued for Jareth, he knew from close observation of his crystals that she had called for the others; his traitorous subjects. The furry knight, the orange oaf, and the fickle goblin had all seen her quite frequently since her departure from the Underground, though diminishingly in the last few months. Further investigation revealed that she hadn't been seeing much of anyone lately.
He had learned that she had fallen into a funk of sorts. She no longer went to her little patch of grass in the park (though he knew for a fact she had stopped acting out anything since her initial return). The girl's typical day involved rolling out of bed minutes before running to that dreaded institution that took up so much of her time, sleepwalking through all of her classes, eating alone, trudging home, and mulling around in her room for the rest of the night. No outside force seemed to instigate her morose state to the concerned eyes of her father and stepmother, and Jareth could find no possible cause from around the time it had started.
Finding no solution, he had resorted to consulting Sir Didymus. While the furry beast had helped the girl through part of the maze, after her departure he had returned to his faithful service to the king.
"…and there seems to be no reasoning behind it! I- oh never mind. What does it matter anyway?"
The noble fox seemed to know more than he let on, but he decided to play the role his king required, even if said ruler hadn't any idea of the nature of the game of which he was becoming a party. "Sire, I implore you to continue. I know it for a fact you would not willingly seek my council without having to come to a realization that no others could aid you."
The Goblin King shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to alleviate his mounting headache. "Fine. If you care so much, I'll have you know that I think it safe to say without any doubt that the girl will find no reason to continue living if it continues, and I…I cannot allow that to happen."
The knight leaped onto chair and sought his king's gaze from across the table, raising his snout in apparent amazement. "And why not? Isn't she the one who left the kingdom in ruin? Is she not the very girl who never turned back to see the broken king she left behind her?"
Jareth leaned forward and put his head into his hand resting on the table. He could see the reasoning behind the statement, and yet he knew they were not the correct questions being asked. "Didymus, the girl had wisdom beyond her years, and it has only grown since she has been here last. I cannot allow this to happen because…" He hesitated, realizing the corner he was backing himself into should he divulge his true feelings to any Labyrinthian citizen, not specifically his trusted knight. He assumed a different stance. "I cannot allow her to die thinking me the villain. I must make her see the error of her judgment in painting me her foe."
There was a knowing sparkle in the fox's eye, though it contrasted his words. "Then it is settled; you shall return Aboveground and set her straight before she is no more."
Despite knowing how he really felt, the Goblin King's heart heaved at those words. I can see myself with no other, he thought subconsciously. Without any further explanation, he assumed his owl form and took off into the night.
The uncomforting recollection drew to a close as Jareth noticed some movement in the room; Sarah had come to put her younger brother to sleep. He saw in his own eyes, without the aid of any crystal, what three years had done to the Labyrinth's champion. She had grown taller, yes, but there was dullness in her eyes. The absence of the defiance from their previous encounters unnerved him. He vowed yet again to find the source of such a drastic change.
Finished her ministrations, the young woman backed out of the room, her eyes on her brother, and turned out the light. Jareth turned away from the scene and took flight. He reached the windowsill of her room and found the window to be open. Knowing she would arrive in a matter of seconds, he transformed and quickly surveyed the room for somewhere to sit. He found a chair that was fairly out of sight and sat down. In a split second, he noticed the change in décor that he had observed from the crystals. All the posters gone, the mess contained to one corner. It was a dismal room that didn't suit the young woman who should have been preparing for her future.
A few seconds later, the young woman flew through the doorway, shut it behind her without so much as a glance behind her, and promptly prostrated herself on the bed in a wave of tears. Struck dumb by her heaving sobs, Jareth began speaking without thinking. "So this is what the champion of my Labyrinth has become!" His booming voice caused her head to jerk up in surprise, but she slowly lowered herself back onto the bed and continued crying. "A sniveling mess. You are pathetic. Get up," he commanded. What am I doing? he wondered. Is this how you tell her how you feel, by yelling at her as she is in obvious pain? Despite his rational thoughts, he continued. "What has you so troubled that you have become a shell of the creature you were three years ago?" As he finished his tirade, a clock began chiming the midnight hour.
His last words seemed to have quite an effect on the young woman. Sarah slowly rose off of the bed, without bothering to dry her tears. Though her pain had obviously been that of sadness, angry lines had formed on her face and a lesser man would have had the sense to feel bad. Jareth, however, stood his ground and returned her stare. "You want to know why I'm like this?" she asked rhetorically. "Are you that stupid that you don't have any idea as to why?"
Jareth opened his mouth to retort, but she beat him to it. "No, you've had plenty of time to think. Only stupidity could be the answer. Since you obviously don't know, let me clue you in. I've been miserable because my life is meaningless!" she screamed, unconcerned about her sleeping brother. The Goblin King's mouth opened yet again but this time out of shocked disbelief. "Nothing I do has any bearing on anyone, and if I died right now, everyone would just keep going on living as if I never existed! The only negative consequence would be that Karen'd have to find a new babysitter! That's what!" She fumed for a moment before becoming despondent again and throwing herself on the bed.
Luckily, Jareth thought enough to ignore this final tantrum before going to her. He walked slowly but purposefully towards the bed and sat down near her head. "Sarah," he inquired softly. She turned her tear-lined face in his general direction and looked up at him with sad eyes. Even at her lowest point, she dimly registered that the man she had dreamt of for three years had sought her out without her doing anything. "Do you know why I am here?" he asked.
She sighed heavily, rolled onto her back, and put her arm over her eyes. "To watch me die?" she asked quietly.
He winced at her answer and reached over to grasp her wrist. He slowly pulled her arm away from her face, all the while holding her gaze. When he finished, he moved his hand to entwine their fingers. Her face betrayed her surprise as she looked at their hands in hopeful confusion. "I am here," he began, "because I couldn't let you waste away like this."
"What do you care?" she asked, hoping against all hope that she would hear the answer she was looking for.
"I care," he murmured, barely above a whisper. Her eyes widened, encouraging yet still wary. "I care," he continued, "because I need you." He let go of her hand to smooth over some of her hair. "I had to see you again. Not a day goes by that I don't think of you and despair at how you turned away my final offer."
"But Toby-" she protested.
"Now, now, you must let me finish. I understand now your reasons for refusing my offer. What you didn't let me say is that I still regret not having you around."
"Why, so you can have some sort of intelligent plaything, instead of just your gaggle of goblins to kick around?"
He sighed in frustration. "You stupid girl, you're going to make me spell it out for you aren't you?"
Again, her eyes widened. "Yes, I am, because all you're doing is talking in circles. If you came to say something, then get on with it!"
"I'm here because you're the only person—hell, you're the only creature in either of our worlds that I can see standing up to me! You're the only one that I want to see every day for the rest of eternity! I'm here because—because I love you! No one else sees just how special you are, not even you!" He paled, realizing that he'd just laid his feelings out for all the world—all his world—to see. He withdrew his hand and clenched his fists in trepidation of the aftermath.
Sarah was left agape. She had been expecting just about anything but what the Goblin King had just said. She had been prepared for anything from him asking her to atone for the damages to the Labyrinth or even to fess up to communicating with some of the Labyrinth's citizens. It wasn't even a thought to her because she had not even dreamed that Jareth, the Goblin King, the one who had tried to stop her at every turn from defeating him, could possibly have any feelings but hatred for her, least of all love.
"What?" she finally managed to articulate. Jareth took on a dark expression at the possibility that she had not heard him. Seeing this, she spoke again. "Did—did you just say that…that you love me?" He stared at his gloved hands that almost seemed desperate to strangle each other. This response affirmed her. "Jareth," she addressed him. He looked up with uncertainty etched in every fiber of his being. She pushed off the bed into an upright position and took his face in her hands. Their eyes met an instant before she pulled his mouth to hers. He felt a flurry of emotions at this new development—shock, relief, hope, recklessness, and an overwhelming amount of ardor—before she shortly broke away from him. His inquisitive gaze prompted her to explain. "Jareth, I've loved you ever since I realized why you acted as you did when I ran the Labyrinth."
"Sarah, dear, you must know it was only because—"
"I know why," she interrupted. "It was because that was what I had wanted. I wanted you to play the villain opposite my heroine. But that's not what I want now."
"What, pray tell, is it you desire now, princess?"
"I want to spend the rest of my life in the Underground, Jareth."
"What, with Higgle? I'm afraid you'll find the conversation to be quite limited." It appeared that it would continue to be a night of unnecessary questions on both parts.
"No, you idiot, with you."
"Why, so you can defeat me on a daily basis? I won't—"
"And you said I was the stupid one! Can't you see, I want to be with you because I love you too!"
"…oh." Jareth relaxed at this new development. "It seems that things work out well for both of us then." With that Jareth lifted her off the bed and transported both of them back to the Underground just in time to witness the sun rising over all the inhabitants. He put an arm around Sarah, still in the spotted fleece pajamas that she had been planning to wear to bed, and kissed the top of her head. "Welcome home, princess."
A/N: Many thanks for the kind reviews! I read and (try to) respond to all of them. And even if you didn't like the story, you could always review and tell me why. :)