Disclaimer: I don't own anything of course and get no $$ just enjoyment.
Authors Note: At the moment this is a one shot, might make an actual story out of it might just do a different one, but unsure at the moment due to how I wrote this one. I just had to get this off of my chest it's been on my mind for a while now. I have other ideas for Labyrinth stories but those are on hold since I have two ongoing AVP stories that I'm finishing.
Enjoy and feel free to leave comments on how I did. No flames please, just constructive criticism and also realize that it's a one shot at the moment if not forever. All depends on how I feel and interest I guess.
-_A Screaming Baby_-
Sarah wasn't sure how she ended up in this position, more really how she hadn't seen it coming. At the prime of her life of only twenty five years old she was holding a screaming baby cooing and rocking softly trying to make the cries stop. The babe was a beautiful blond haired and surprisingly mismatched eyed boy who looked all too much like a man from her past. His odd appearance looking nothing like neither her nor his father is what made her life miserable, but she took it.
All for him, her beautiful baby boy.
At the age of twenty three she had married a handsome man with a good job that had spent the past two years wooing her and she fell in love, looking back she wasn't sure if he ever was in love with her.
Their life seemed to perfect, she worked at the local high school teaching English her stories and imagination seeming to get all the kids interested so much so that not a single one skipped her class or was absent. Some even came to school while terribly sick in order to attend her class, she'd have to practically beg them to go home and rest.
Her husband, Ron, was a well-respected member of the community but his construction management jobs tended to have him gone for long periods, and she often found herself terribly lonely. Her Underground friends kept her good company, but when he was gone she missed him in ways they couldn't satisfy her, but she was faithful and loved him too dearly to cheat just to satisfy a fleeting need.
They were young, but when she broke the news she was pregnant with the baby they'd both always talked about things started to take a turn. During her pregnancy all continued in the marital bliss from before, but as the due date approached he seemed to withdraw more into his work. She wasn't sure why, but when she asked he just shook his head and gave her reassurances that it was nothing.
Finally, the day came when she felt it, her water breaking she had practiced the procedure for the day several times in her head and out and as the pain started to increase surprisingly fast she found herself unable to make it out of her bedroom let alone to a phone. As quick as she could she took off her maternity pants and underwear trying to ignore the rush of pain and the urge to start pushing. She was even starting to panic at how quickly it was happening, the classes and doctors never said anything about it and she stared at the phone on the far end of the room desperately.
She lay down on the bed and let out a slight scream as the pain increased, she felt helpless and the fear was building with her panic as she tried to stay calm and remember her lessons. Desperately she looked at the mirror and screamed for her friends. In no time they appeared first happy to see her than realizing the situation they too started to panic, surprisingly Hoggle grabbed her hand and pleaded for her to remain as calm as possible and to allow him to get Jareth.
Her mind wasn't rational, tears streamed down her face as the pain intensified and she gave into the urges to push, her friends words falling on almost deaf ears as she nodded and he disappeared but the rest remained.
Jareth appeared what felt like hours later, but in reality was most likely just a few minutes with numerous goblin attendants who she realized after the fact were midwives. She was terrified, the pain was too much and even her screams couldn't take her mind off of it as the midwives leaped into action with helping her breath and deliver. She felt a hand gripping hers, a damp cloth touching her forehead and soothing words in her ears as she delivered the pain unending, but somehow she felt better that it was easier, safer.
The next few hours she spent pushing were filled with love and attention from the man next to her she vaguely recognized in her pain filled mind as Jareth. She felt so tired, so weak, and for the briefest of moments she knew the look of defeat had entered her face and she turned head to look at him. His eyes full of concern.
She told him, how tired she was, how weak, and at last how sorry she was. She had even told him she felt the pain was punishment for what she caused him. He stared at her for what felt like an eternity as she rambled on crying and at times screaming in pain, her mind losing rational thought as the pain increased and the baby didn't seem to want to leave. A midwife shook him from his stupor as she spoke to him fast, quiet words she couldn't pick up but the looks on their faces were grave and his was almost panicked.
In that moment, she felt a calm acceptance come over her and grabbed his hand again roughly to get his attention, his gaze immediately falling back onto her. She knew what needed to be done; she could feel herself at a crossroads. The birthing was not going well, she knew she and the baby could die but she didn't want that. In the corner of her eyes, the pile of bloody rags and towels caught her attention and her resolve was clear.
"Save the baby."
It hadn't been a plea, it was a command and she never stopped repeating it to him each time going closer to begging as she felt her strength being sapped away. Her hand like a death grip on his, finally he nodded and told the waiting midwife next to him his answer. The next few hours went by aching slow and every pain filled moment was filled with the resolution that she'd birth the baby and die herself if need be, but it was going to live.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity one last push revealed a screaming baby and happy, relieved faces. She was so weak, but as she and the baby were cleaned up and it was wrapped up she found herself smiling softly but with overwhelming happiness at the small bundle now in Jareths arms. He seemed shocked at first, but quickly began to coo and sing to the babe before gently depositing it into her waiting arms.
The beautiful face of her baby boy who surprisingly had his eyes open stared at her with mismatched eyes and blonde hair of the man standing next to her who was watching in shock but his eyes full of love. The midwives and her friends all gathered around cooing and smiling at the babe and his mother, their joy as much as their kings at the similarities.
Slowly, her friends filtered out to give her privacy and the goblins too all until only Jareth was there. She felt her eyes starting to droop closed and she fought the urge, but Jareth gently admonished her and took the baby putting him gently in his crib before returning to her side.
"Sleep, Precious." He had whispered lovingly to her and quietly sang her and the babe who looked just like him to sleep before disappearing.
When she had awoke she had found the cellphone next to her and called her friend and told her what had happened, minus her friends and Jareth, but she gave her friend a convincing story and was driven to the hospital for both her and her baby to be checked out. When asking for the name of her new bundle of joy she felt that all the names she'd picked out for her surprise seemed inadequate. Smiling she told them the babes name, finding it fitting.
Aedan Carney Williams.
When Ron had returned home a few days later, she had hoped for sooner after she had called him telling him of little Aedans birth, he seemed ecstatic. Eagerly he gazed at the sleeping baby in fatherly adoration and quietly asked her why she named him how she did. Smiling softly she answered fondly closing her favorite book, The Labyrinth.
Aedan old Gaelic for "fire" or "born of fire" and he was firey, and Carney another from old Gaelic derived from a word meaning "victorious" or "victorious champion." She told him it was fitting, and she wanted him to have a strong name. Slowly he turned around and frowned at her, he clarified that he hadn't meant his other names, but his last name. She had shot him a confused look from her rocking chair at the hurt and slightly angry look in his eyes. Standing up and putting the book down she walked to him explaining her confusion. They had agreed long ago that their first born would carry her last name so that the family name could live whether Toby had kids or not when he was older. He had agreed heartily than, but now he seemed affronted.
Gently she put her hand on his shoulder to get him to look at her, but he didn't. After a few moments of silence she asked him for forgiveness not really knowing why, but wanting him to not be angry anymore so he could enjoy his family.
As if by fate, Aedan opened his eyes and started to stare at his father, and Sarah smiled knowing that if she couldn't than her baby could bring Ron around. That wasn't the case however, as soon as he saw the eyes of his newborn son he turned around quickly, shocking her with his rage filled eyes.
She never saw the hand coming as he slapped her so hard she fell to the ground in front of the full length mirror, turning to look at him holding her aching face she started to feel fear but mostly she was confused. Getting up she soon found that before she could speak he backhanded her making her fall into the mirror, she cried out as the glass broke cutting into her flesh all over her body. Crying from confusion and the pain she found herself thrown across the room by her hair into her rocking chair that surprisingly didn't break and fell back into the wall. He came at her again and smacked her knocking her down to the floor again she felt the glass digging deeper into her skin, the pain, the confusion, and hurt shown on her face as she cried and tried to get away from him under the bed out of his reach.
He made to grab her again, but a rush of adrenaline and fear made her able to escape him under their California King as she curled into the fetal position to avoid his grabbing hands. The screaming from her baby registering as Ron disappeared from view and she was afraid he'd go for him next as his booted feet went closer to the crib. She screamed in fear, her mother's instincts reacting and she quickly was out from under the bed grabbing him keeping him away from Aedan.
The sneer on his face was enough to tell her that she'd played into his hands as he smacked her onto the bed cursing and screaming at her. He called her a cheat, a whore, so many things that her mind couldn't catalogue them all as she cried and tried to make him see reason that she had been faithful. He spat at her calling her worthless, and as his tirade continued it seemed that a mad glint shone in his eye ever more.
Just when she thought he'd worn himself out and would leave he started to tear at her clothes saying that if she acted like a whore he'd treat her like one. She had screamed, clawed, and begged him to stop, that she had just given birth that he would hurt her and most of all that she had been nothing but faithful, she was met by cruel laughter as he continued.
Soon, she found herself laying on the bed, tears still sliding down her face as her once loving husband put back on his clothes and left with the final insult flying over his shoulder that he was leaving her, for the very same friend who had driven her to the hospital.
She felt so broken, used, and the blood loss was messing with her vision and making her feel fatigued, she knew that if she didn't die from her wounds and blood loss than she'd die from the infection he caused when he forced her. Aedans cries gave her strength to crawl to his crib and manage to stand up and hold him against her cooing and singing softly to him.
Sarah felt helpless and so utterly broken as she gazed down at her baby boy, thinking about what had just transpired made her cry even harder blood and tears falling onto his face which she promptly wiped away with a shaking weak hand.
"I love you Aedan, never forget mommy loves you." She knew what she had to do, before it was too late. "I wish the Goblin King would come and take you away right now, to live with him as if he were your daddy."
Her words were quiet; nothing above a whisper, but it was enough. The sound of goblins at first giggling until they saw what they had been summoned to, and Jareth, who flew in from the window as before so long ago first had a sneer but it quickly fell away.
She knew she must look frightful, cooing to a crying baby covered in glass, crying, battered, bruised, and sitting on the floor against a wall in a growing pool of her blood that was everywhere.
"Sarah." He began, but found himself unable to finish his sentence. The room was filled with broken glass, blood was everywhere, and the stench of sex filled the air causing his stomach to lurch as his gaze slowly fell onto the crying woman and her babe. Mirrored glass in her flesh told him what had befell the mirror, and the blood coming from between her legs explained far more than he wanted to know, he was torn between crying and murderous rage towards the one who did it.
She looked so broken and weak. Defeated, and it killed him.
Her eyes and flesh were slowly losing their color and shine of life as she stared at him silent pleading that he respects her possible last wish.
However, the Goblin King was a selfish man and he summoned up a crystal ball turning it this way and that in his hands as he approached her and crouched before her.
"Say your right words, Sarah. You'll forget about the baby, but die alone. You can come with me and be the mother to your baby." He paused as her dulling eyes lit up at the possibility of raising her son and he continued holding the crystal in front of her as he gave her the choices.
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say and I will be your slave."
Sarah smiled at hearing his words again, and they looked down at her now quiet baby who was reaching out towards the man in front of her giggling happily she felt her decision was almost made for her. She felt her right words come to her as their eyes met.
"I do."
The Goblin King smiled brightly at her, and thrust his crystal ball at her removing the glass and fixing her wounds in an instant, the strain barely showing on his face as he picked her up gingerly smiling at her and the now sleeping babe.
Goblins cheered and in a moment, they disappeared leaving no trace of their presence except a cold smiling figure where she once was.