Not Grieving
By: InuLvr7
JS- Dark. Very. Jareth's sunk into a swirling depression. Sarah's dead, but he won't grieve. No, he's past that point. He just wants to join her. One- shot song fic from the Evanesence song "Like You."
Disclaimer: Don't own anything except the idea and a Chi hair straightener.
Stay low
Soft dark and dreamless
Far beneath my nightmares and loneliness
Jareth stood apart from the few mourners at Sarah's funeral. He didn't know any of them, and there was no solace he could give them. He looked up from thick lashes and realized that wasn't true. Toby was there, but he didn't count. Jareth looked back down at the coffin that was being lowered into the grave. It was a dark brown mahogany coffin, and it smelled of lemon. Sarah hated lemons. He felt a sob rise up in his throat. Sarah had always been so full of life. She'd been practically bursting with it. Now she was dark, cold, dead in the ground, and there was nothing he could do, nothing he could've done to prevent it. When he'd first heard of her death... Damn, his heart near froze. He had instantly magicked a crystal and saw it was true before he he hurled it at the wall. Nightmares of how she must've felt, waiting for him to save her, had haunted him now for the past week. With Sarah gone, he truly was alone. She was the only sunlight in his dark world. She was really gone now. He had nobody left but himself. Somehow it felt wrong. She'd been so alive when he had been the one so dead.
I hate me
For breathing without you
I don't want to feel anymore for you
Sarah, his light, his love, the pulse in his veins and the beat of his heart was gone. There was nothing he could've done to save her- no. That wasn't true. He could've saved her. It didn't have to be so late, but he hadn't. It had been too long, too late to keep the breath in her lungs, the life on her lips. He was alive, and she was dead. How could she be dead? Wasn't it impossible? This couldn't be real could it? Jareth watched as a rain drop fell from the sky onto the sleek wood of the coffin. He suddenly pulled the black cloth of his cloak tighter. This was madness, this pain. He didn't want it anymore. More drops began to fall. He just wanted it to go away. He looked back up; Toby was the only one left. The young man- twenty five now, wasn't it?- looked at him quizzically. The rain was drizzling now. Jareth felt himself sink even more so into the darkness and shadow that the cloak offered. After a moment of stunned recognition, Toby nodded to him. Obviously, the darkness wasn't deep enough. Jareth lowered his head to gaze back down at Sarah's coffin.
Grieving for you
I'm not grieving for you
Nothing real love can't undo
The girl, woman, had never loved him back. Not that he knew of anyway. He knew that she had thought of him, called him several times even. That was why he had ignored her even as she lay dying. He hadn't known, though. Damnit. He hadn't known. He hadn't known so much when it came to Sarah. He clenched his hands into fists. He wouldn't feel this pain anymore. He didn't need to, not when there was another option.
And though I may have lost my way
All paths lead straight to you
"Jareth?"
The Goblin King looked up to see Toby standing in front of him. Jareth said nothing to him, but Toby obviously felt compelled to go on. He shoved an envelope into Jareth's hands. The Goblin King looked down at the aged paper and looked back at Toby.
"She loved you, you know. She never told anyone else, but she did. When you didn't come the first time she called, at 22, she was so depressed, but she never stayed that way for long. She tried again a year later and every year since then. I don't remember anything that happened, but she told me. She said that love was a peculiar thing. She said that your love was even more so," Toby fidgeted in his long black trenchcoat. "She said that it was a love of the most exquisite kind, the one that the owner isn't even aware of at first and is even frightened of, but it is the strongest and longest. She wanted you to know and to have that. It was in her will." When Jareth didn't reply, Toby just turned around. He looked down at the coffin one last time before leaving; Jareth was finally alone with Sarah. He looked down and finally let himself take in what Toby said.
She loved him? She had. She couldn't have. That would mean that his letting her go would have been all for waste. He looked down at the coffin and moved closer to the edge of the grave pit. "I won't feel pain anymore, Sarah." He fell to his knees in the soggy grass. "I won't."
I long to be like you
Lie cold in the ground like you
Jareth began to open the envelope. He couldn't keep living without Sarah. He couldn't live within her, and he couldn't live without her. He leaned over the grave and let a tear fall down, joining the rain that had begun to pound down. When her world had fallen down, he hadn't been there for her. He hadn't. He had let the Aboveground and Underground differences blind him.
Halo
Blinding wall between us
Melt away and leave us alone again
The Aboveground had always been something he despised. Not because humans were filthy or because their ways were strange. No. He loathed the Aboveground for taking Sarah away from him, for her choosing it over him. Toby couldn't have been right. If she loved him, why would she chosen this place over him? Jareth glanced down at the envelope his body kept dry. The rain was now like an icy sheet, cutting into the cloak on his back. Jareth ripped it open and looked at it. He took it out and read the words that Sarah had carefully written out. He read it twice to make sure that his mismatched eyes weren't playing tricks on him again. They'd been doing that so often lately...
Humming haunted somewhere out there
I believe our love can see us through in death
He wouldn't let Sarah be alone in death. He'd let her be alone as her world fell down, but he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. It was true, Faes were immortal, up to a point. It was will power that kept them alive. Jareth looked down at his one weakness and realized he didn't want to live. Not without love. He wouldn't grieve anymore. He'd do something.
I long to be like you
Lie cold in the ground like you
There's room inside for two
And I'm not grieving for you
I'm coming for you
Jareth let himself fall down, through the coffin and into it, next to Sarah's perfect, embalmed body. Her flesh was so cold, but his was cooling to match. "I won't let you be alone." Sarah's letter had read that she loved him and that:
"You're not alone
No matter what they told you you're not alone
I'll be right beside you forevermore."
Sarah's letter said those words, and he knew. He knew that she had loved him now. Toby had even said so. That boy who knew nothing of him before knew that his sister, Jareth's life force, had loved him. She'd returned his affections, and he'd let her die alone- murdered by some drunk fool driving his car through a red light in the middle of the day.
I long to be like you
Lie cold in the ground like you did
There's room inside for two
And I'm not grieving for you
And as we lay in silent bliss
I know you remember me
Jareth clutched her body to his. She was just as beautiful as he remembered. His body temperature matched hers now, and he could feel life leaving him. "Sarah," he whispered her name into the still silken locks of her dark lustrous hair. "I'm coming. You won't be alone."
I long to be like you
Lie cold in the ground like you
There's room inside for two
And I'm not grieving for you
I'm coming for you
"I'm coming for you."
Okay. So I guess it was kind of depressing, but it was screaming to be done.