Somebody pounding on the door to Sarah's room awoke her. She sat up, and then started to panic, because the sun was high in the sky.

"Just a minute!" Sarah called out as she picked up the slightly tattered box and stuffed both notes and the remaining goblin slipper inside.

"Ah, it's just me, Sarah," Erna said from the other side of the door. "Not like they'd actually bother to dirty their hands up here." Either way, Sarah quickly shoved the box back into the hole and covered it up again with the mattress. She then smoothed out her hair and opened the door.

"It's so late; I'm certain that the Lady must be furious at me," Sarah said as she hurried down the stairs.

"I served them breakfast, so everything is alright on that front for now," Erna said. "They're a little… testy, and seemed content to laze around in bed. But it won't be long before they'll ask to get dressed, so you'd better…" Erna's words became more and more distant as Sarah hurried downstairs to the kitchen. When she walked through the doorway, Erna's words were cut off completely.

A bell ran on the board, and Sarah immediately turned around to go see what Antonia wanted.

"Sasha, what on earth have you been doing?" Antonia snapped at Sarah as soon as she came into the room. "I've been ringing and ringing for you! That dreadful goblin lady served me breakfast; I'm surprised that it didn't curdle everything on the tray and make the flowers wilt!"

"Yes, milady, sorry milady," Sarah said absently as she bit back several snide remarks. It would appear as though her will to do anything like leave had fled as well. She couldn't even do that one thing, either. "What would you like to wear for the day?"

"How about something black? I'm in a foul mood following the ball last night," Antonia pouted from her bed.

"Of course, milady," Sarah said robotically as she turned to the closet. She grabbed the first black dress that she saw and displayed it for Antonia's approval. For one, Antonia didn't immediately poo-poo the dress, and remained silent as Sarah dressed her for the day.

"It was the worst thing, Sarina," Antonia finally said as she sat down heavily at her vanity and started to play with her golden hair. "For the first couple of hours, his majesty did nothing but sit above us on a balcony. He would accept no visitors up there, not even to greet his guests. And when he did come down, all he did was spend the entire evening dancing with one girl who clearly had no fashion sense!"

"I see," Sarah said as she brushed the tangles out from Antonia's hair. "That must have been horrible for you."

"And do you even want to know what the worst part was, Sabrina?" Antonia gasped out.

"What's that?" Sarah said flatly. She honestly didn't care what the worst part of the night was for Antonia. She'd probably broken a nail or something stupid.

"When the king came down, he walked close to where we were standing! Mumsie tried to talk to him, to introduce him to us. However, he turned to her and with the coldest eyes told her that if she continued to speak, that he would send her to the bog! Isn't that just horrid, Sally?" Antonia did not allow Sarah to voice her opinion on the matter, which was probably for the best. "On the way home, mumsie said to us that she's thinking about moving. To anywhere but where ever we're under the rule of such a dreadful, self-centered ruler! Lucia was upset when she heard that, but I'm eager to get away from here! All of those dreadful goblins, all over the place! Ugh!"

Sarah finished pinning Antonia's hair up, and stepped away from her.

"If that's everything, milady, I should go and attend to Lady Lucia and Lady Marit."

"Yes, yes. Whatever. Tell Lucia and mumsie that I'll be in the library," Antonia said as she stood up.


The rest of the morning was quiet. It was clear to Sarah that Marit was steamed over what had happened, however, she did not mention moving to Sarah. Unlike her youngest daughter, Marit was not open about such matters with a maid. Lucia, however, seemed upset and withdrawn. She was quiet, and retreated to the study as soon as she'd been dressed.

Just when Sarah was about to announce that luncheon was served, the front doorbell rang, so she went to answer it. It was Lady Diana, who was their closest neighbor and one of Lady Marit's friends. "Get out of my way, servant! This is important business!" Diana snapped at Sarah as she barged in. She then burst into the library, where Antonia and Marit were engrossed in their hobbies.

"Lady Diana, it's so good to see you," Marit said with confusion when Diana came in.

"His Majesty is traveling the kingdom in search of the girl from last night!" Diana exclaimed.

"What?" Marit and Antonia asked in unison with equal looks of confusion on their faces.

"It's getting around the town! Lady Brigit told me, who heard it from Lady Bjork, who in turn heard it from Lady Margareta! Apparently, the mystery girl ran off in a big hurry last night, and lost her slipper in the process! The king is going around all of the houses in search of whomever the slipper belongs to!"

"This is our chance! Sari, go fetch Lucia and bring her to me!" Marit snapped at Sarah.

As Sarah walked from the library to the study, her mind raced and her heart pounded. Jareth was the king, and surely he knew about how goblin slippers would only fit one person and only one person. However, would Marit know that?

Before Sarah could decide what to do about Jareth, she had already arrived at the study. She walked in, and saw Lucia, seemingly studying something at the desk.

"Yes? Is luncheon served?" Lucia asked, annoyed. "Who was at the door, earlier, too?"

"It was Lady Diana, milady," Sarah replied quietly. "She came with some news. Your mother has requested that you join her immediately in the library."

"Ugh, what a pain," Lucia said with irritation. "I'm in the middle of something right now, can't you see?" Sarah shrugged and left the room. She returned to the library via the servant's halls, and listened outside the door.

"It's imperative that either Lucia or Antonia fit that slipper! I don't care what it takes; I will make sure that either of them ends up on the throne!" Marit was saying to Diana quietly.

Sarah's mind raced as she heard of that. In the original tale of Cinderella, the wicked stepmother sliced off the toes of one of her daughters, and the heel of another to try and get the slipper to fit. It was why Sarah didn't press Lucia to join her mother— she had no desire to see either of the girls harmed like that. She might not like them much, but nobody deserved to be hurt like that. And at the hands of their own mother.

However, if Jareth was making his way around the kingdom in search of her, then he'd eventually stop at Marit's house. There was little that Sarah could do if Marit decided to harm her daughters at that point.

But she also didn't want to see him.

It would be easy to slink off now, while Marit and her daughters were distracted by this news. Leave the fate of Lucia's and Antonia's feet up to, well, fate.

But before Sarah could make up her mind either way, Erna appeared behind her. "Somebody else at the front door," she whispered.

"No," Sarah said quietly. "No. I can't answer it. I can't! It's Him!"

"Who?" Erna asked with a baffled look.

"No, I can't," Sarah begged her.

"Fine. But you owe me a huge explanation, girly! About everything!" Erna said as she slipped away to answer the door.

A minute later, Erna opened the main door to the library. "His royal majesty, Jareth the Goblin King," Erna announced timidly.

"Y-your majesty!" Marit gasped as the three of them surged to their feet. They all sunk into curtsy's.

Jareth swept into the room, leaving his guards by the door. His eyes swept around the room, and for a moment, Sarah was certain that his eyes stopped on the half-hidden servant's door. But then he looked away, and Sarah was certain that she'd imagined it.

"It is such an honor to-" Marit started, but Jareth cut her off with his hand. "Er… Might I present to you-"

"You are the erroneous woman from last night, who spoke out of turn," Jareth said as he continued to look around the room. "I see that you have still not learned your lesson. Guards!" He snapped his fingers, and two guards swarmed into the room and grabbed a hold of Marit's arms.

"Your majesty, what might I ask is the meaning of this?!" Diana spoke out. Jareth only offered her a cruel smile.

"I told her last night that if she continued to interrupt me, then I would have her bogged," Jareth said. He then turned his cruel smile onto Marit. "If you tell me where the girl is, then I will spare you and your children the shame of such a punishment. What will it be?"

"This is my younger daughter, Antonia," Marit said, her voice quiet. "And I don't know where my other daughter is; I sent a servant to fetch her, but she has not returned."

Jareth grimaced, and motioned towards the doorway. "Take her over there, where she'll be out of the way. I want her to witness this." As the guards moved Marit to the other side of the room, Sarah realized that Lucia had come out; likely drawn by the arrival of the king, or maybe Erna had told her that he was here. Lucia stood behind the guards, her face completely ashen as she watched everything unfolding.

A moment later, Jareth started to walk over to the servant's door. Sarah drew back, ready to flee, but then Jareth did something unexpected. "I know you're there, Sarah. Please come out."

Startled, Sarah stepped back further until she ran into the wall. "Please, Sarah. If you flee, I will have to chase you. Only this time, I will not hold back," Jareth said, his voice harsh.

Sarah then grew angry. Not at Jareth, but at herself. She'd been running all this time. And she was so tired of it. She didn't want to run anymore. She wanted answers from Jareth.

She took a deep breath and opened the door. She barely noted the surprised looks on everybody's faces— on Marit's, Diana's, Lucia's, and Antonia's faces because she actually obeyed, and at the guard's with the fact that she was a maid— before Jareth was standing in front of her.

"H-how?" she asked quietly. "How did you know I was here?"

"I've known this entire time," he said simply. At Sarah's confused look, he went on. "I told Hoggle to bring you back here whenever you asked him. I found other employment for the house's previous maid, and told Hoggle to get you an interview with the family. I…" Here, he paused, and finally looked away from her. "I did not mean to leave you here for so long though, Sarah. A few months at most. But, there was a conflict brewing in the northern-most part of the kingdom. I rode away to deal with it, only to have it turn into a full-fledged war that swept me up into the neighboring kingdoms. I only just returned the other month to find that you remained here. Which was never my intent. So I immediately set in motion my original plan. The ball, the slippers, everything."

"I… I still don't understand. Why did you do all of this for me?" Sarah whispered as she drew back from him.

"Haven't I always given you everything that you've always asked for?" Jareth said, his face sad. "You asked me to take away Toby, and I did. You wished for adventure, and I gave you one. You also dreamed of being swept off of your feet in a fairytale romance."

"J-jareth…" Sarah stammered out, her eyes wide. "I was a child! I don't want any of that now! I just wanted to be left alone! For years, your goblins never ceased to torment me! My dreams were stricken with endless labyrinths, needing to find something but never being able to! My family thought that I was going insane! I thought that I was going insane! I came here to beg of you to stop tormenting me, only to find out that you receive no visitors, hear no petitions! However, after I came here, I realized that for the first time in years, I was not being plagued by goblins set on making my life a living hell! My dreams were sweet and peaceful! And you say that you did this all for me?!"

She reached out and slapped him as hard as she could. The guards immediately stepped forward, but Jareth waved them back as he nursed his injured cheek.

"I must say that I deserve that a thousand times over," he said sadly. "There is nothing that I could ever do to make up for the things that I've put you through, both knowingly and unknowingly. Asking my goblins to move your things, to irritate you enough to the point where you'd beg Hoggle to come back here so that you could beg me to stop. Having to leave for a war for several years, leaving you here, under the employment of a woman that I should have bogged when she herself was a bratty child."

Jareth took a step closer to Sarah, and she took a step back until she ran into the door. Then, much to everybody's surprise, Jareth sunk down onto his knees. "But please, Sarah. I only did all of this so that I could beg you to forgive me for what I did to you all those years ago. I was being truthful in what I said to you, and my feelings for you have only grown in the years since. But now… Now, the only thing that I will ask of you is that you love me."

"I…" Sarah started. She looked away from Jareth's intense gaze and she looked over at everybody. There were all clearly confused beyond belief over the events that were unfolding before them. She looked back to Jareth. "I don't love you."

"I… I see," Jareth said quietly.

"And it is because you've done such horrible things to me. You put me under the employment of… This for example." Sarah waved her hand at Marit. "But you are right: I did ask for all of those things. I asked that you'd take Toby away, I wished for adventure. And yes, there was a time when I dreamed of being the princess in some story. But then I actually became part of a story, and realized that those stories are shitty and horrible. That dream died a long time ago, I'm afraid. I grew up. I… I also don't love you because I don't know you. The part of me that wished that you'd come sweep me off my feet idealized and romanticized you. And I think that I realized that for the first time last night."

Jareth mulled over Sarah's words for a long time. "I see," he finally said. He snapped his fingers, and Sarah's worn work shoes were replaced with the goblin slippers Hoggle had given her. Both of them. "I… I think that maybe I was doing the same thing as well. You were this feisty, beautiful young woman. The only woman who's ever refused me in my life. And I wanted you, and your refusal only just made me want you more. And I know that there aren't enough words in any language that ever existed or will exist in the future, to express how sorry I am that I manipulated you like that. No actions will ever be able to properly convey this to you. But I still love you. Instead of asking for your hand in marriage, I simply ask that you promise to give me a chance to prove all of this to you."

Sarah considered his words, and weighed everything in her mind. She just wanted to go home, to try and return to her life. Her Before.

But her time here had changed her. She knew that even if she were to go back, that things would never be the same.

And she also knew that she'd never be able to leave her friends behind. Hoggle. Didymus. Ludo. And now Erna and Ivar.

Would it really be so bad to at least give Jareth a chance?

"Dinner!" Sarah barked out.

"Huh?" Jareth looked up at her, startled by her outburst.

"You owe me so many dinners," Sarah said sternly. "At fancy restaurants. The kind with dress-codes. And a pony! No, a unicorn! I think that all of the shit that you've put me through seems fitting that you repay me by giving me a unicorn!"

Jareth smiled brightly. He reached out, gently grabbed Sarah's hand, and tenderly kissed the back of it. "I will give you a stable full of unicorns, then, if that's what you want. I will also take you to places that'll make your world's five-star restaurants seem like fast food in comparison. Sarah. There is but one person that a king will ever kneel before. Do you know who that is?" She shook her head, her eyes wide. "His queen." He stood and grasped Sarah's hands between his own. "But I do believe that there is another wish that you will want granted, and it must happen right away."

In an instant, they no longer stood in Marit's library. The guards and everybody else was gone. Only Sarah and Jareth remained.

Sarah was startled to see Jareth wearing a simple button down shirt and black slacks. His long hair was swept back into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. A miniature version of the emblem that he wore around his neck dangled from a chain on his ear. Sarah then looked down at herself, and realized that he'd put her in a simple navy tea-dress that matched her goblin slippers.

Jareth then gestured towards the house that they stood in front of. Sarah realized with a pang that it was her family home. And that something was happening inside.

"What's going on?" Sarah asked with confusion.

"Toby graduated from high school today," Jareth explained.

"What? Already? He was only ten when I left! How could he be eighteen already?!" Sarah gasped out with surprise.

"Time passes differently in the Underworld," Jareth said. "I can't make up for any of this, as I've already said to you. But I can help to set things right between you and your family."

Sarah walked up the steps, but her courage faltered as she reached up to press the doorbell. Jareth stepped up behind her and reached out to press it for her.

"Coming!" a voice said from inside. The door opened a moment later, and a man looked out at them. Jareth, being a foot taller than Sarah, drew the man's gaze first. He looked at the Goblin King with confusion before he looked down to Sarah. "…Sarah? Is that you?"

That's when Sarah realized who it was. When she'd left, he'd barely come up to her chest. Now he towered above her, almost as tall as Jareth was. "Toby!" Sarah exclaimed. The siblings clung to one another, almost as if they were afraid that if they let go, the other would disappear.

They finally stepped back from one another, but they didn't release the other. "Toby, who's at the door?" Irene called out from the kitchen.

"Mom, dad!" Toby exclaimed as he tugged Sarah towards the other room. "You'll never guess who it is!"

The room was filled with their relatives: aunts and uncles and cousins that Sarah hadn't even thought about for years and years now.

"Sarah!" Robert gasped out as he stood abruptly. He rushed over to her and embraced her. He finally pulled away and held her out at arm's length. "Where in the world have you been? Do you know how worried sick that we've been all these years? Never knowing what happened to you, if you were even alive or dead?"

"I'm sorry, dad, I-" Sarah started, but she was cut off by somebody coming up behind her and laying a hand on her shoulder.

Robert looked up, and so did Sarah. Jareth. "I must apologize, sir. For it was I who led your daughter astray. I did not mean to keep her for so long, but I can assure you that your daughter was in good hands the entire time that she was away." He held up a finger. "And before you ask: she left of her own free will, and returns also under her own free will."

"W-why don't we all sit down and have some more cake and punch?" Irene interrupted. "I feel like this is going to be a very long story."


Over the course of the next hour, Jareth helped Sarah tell the story of how the two of them first met when Sarah was fifteen years old. And then Jareth returned for her years later. It was her love for him that made her go crazy, until he came around and just swept her off her feet and whisked her away to Europe. Only then, Jareth was called away to fight in a conflict, and only just now returned.

"And you couldn't have called us? Or written? Dropped a postcard into the mail?" Robert asked with irritation.

"Love makes a young woman behave strangely," Irene spoke up. "Believe me: I was Sarah's age once. I know how it feels, to be so in love that everything else seems completely irrelevant."

"Well, I don't care why she left," Toby said. "I'm just glad that she's back now." He leaned over and hugged her tightly.

Their relatives began to drift away after that, clearly wanting to give the Williams family time with their daughter. After a bit, Toby, Sarah, and Jareth slipped out into the back yard.

"You're him, aren't you?" Toby asked. "The reason why Sarah couldn't contact us the entire time she was gone is because she wasn't anywhere that phones or the postal system exist."

"Yes," Sarah agreed. "Toby, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to leave you. But Jareth was just tormenting me so much! I wanted to go over there and just…" She made like she was squeezing something in front of her.

Toby looked up at Jareth and gave him a dark look. "I am not a child anymore. I don't care if you're the Goblin King. If you hurt my sister ever again, I will end you."

Jareth chuckled slightly. "Yes, I like him very much. I knew that you'd grow into such a strong-willed man, just like your sister. I know that the two of you would not enjoy to be separated right now, so I have a proposal for you, Toby. You've just graduated from high school, and you're considering your next step. After all, it's a big decision. Dartmouth. Harvard. Yale. Brown."

"Toby!" Sarah gasped with glee. She flung her arms around him once more. "You got accepted into all of those schools?!"

"I did," Toby agreed. "But now I'm curious as to what job that the Goblin King is going to offer me."


After sitting and talking with her parents and Toby for a little bit longer, Jareth and Sarah went for a walk to the park. The park where everything started. "I'm still a little confused about everything here," Sarah started.

"Yes?"

"Your grand plan," Sarah continued vaguely. "Everything fit together so well. But how could you have done it? Did you see into the future or something?"

"No, nothing like that. I simply asked people to do things for me. Some were easy. Others were more difficult. I've already told you about Hoggle's role in bringing you there, and setting you up with that maid job. About how I found other employment for their previous maid. But I also had to tell that dreadful Lady Marit to hire you, no matter what. And no matter how badly you screwed up, to never ever fire you, or else she and her entire daughters would be at the bottom of an oubliette. And then I threatened to send her to the bog if she ever told a soul about this. Looking back, I believe that some of her behavior towards you was because she wanted to be so horrible that you'd quit. And then it wouldn't be her fault. Lucia and Antonia probably just picked up on her wretched behavior.

"Later, when I set my plan into motion… Hoggle's role, again, you know about. I gave him your slippers. I told him to deliver the invitation to you personally, away from Marit and her daughters. I also told all of the Goblin Kingdom tailors that there would be a great prize to whoever secured a deal with Marit's daughters. Once somebody came to tell me that they had secured employment to make the dresses, I simply asked her to eye you up and give me an approximate measurement of you. So that I could get you your dress."

"But how did you know that I would even show up?"

"Yes, that one was tricky to ponder," Jareth said with a slight chuckle. "It took me the longest time to puzzle out how to even get you to go to the ball after Hoggle told me that you didn't want to go, and rejected the slippers. But in the end, the answer came in the most unexpected of ways: the cook."

"Erna? What did you do to her?"

"I did nothing to harm her!" Jareth said as he held his hands out in surrender. "I approached her the day before. I told her that it was important to me that Sarah attend the ball. She expressed to me that you had no desire to attend. So I told her that all she had to do was to make sure that you went up to your room after Marit and her daughters left for the ball, that you yourself would do the rest. Telling Ivar to go back and bring you to the castle was nothing. He wanted to do it, and he was eager to do so."

They were silent for a moment until they reached the lake. There, Jareth turned to look at her. "I have something else that I want to talk to you about. It's about the fate of Lady Marit."

"What about it? What are you planning to do to her?" Sarah asked.

Jareth shook his head slightly. "No. Not me. You."

"Me?" Sarah asked, her eyes wide.

"Yes," he agreed with a coy smile. "You're the one that they wronged. For years and years, you suffered their abuse. Even though you didn't have to. And I think that we both know it. At any time, you could have asked Hoggle to take you back home. But we aren't going to discuss why you didn't leave. I wanted to ask you to decide their fate. I could have them pushed into the bog, thrown into an oubliette, imprisoned, put in the stocks in the middle of the town… Oh, I hear that there's great fun to be had by suspending people upside down. Or-"

Sarah cut him off with a hand. "Enough," she said, and he fell silent.

Sarah gazed out over the lake as she considered this. The fate of Marit, Lucia, and Antonia rested in her hands now. She almost wanted to ask him to take back this offer; she didn't want to have that kind of power, even over people who, as he'd pointed out, had been cruel to her for years.

However, it didn't amuse her just a little bit to think about any of the things that he'd offered. It was tempting. However, she felt like a few unkind words and growing up in a society that actively praised people for not knowing how to dress themselves wasn't enough to justify shoving somebody into the bog.

So instead, she tried to think of something that would teach them a lesson.

She smiled slyly as an idea popped into her head. "I'm guessing that you've thought of something then?" Jareth asked her.

"Yes," she agreed. "You should prohibit them from ever seeking out another maid. Maybe even a cook. But maybe that's going too far? I don't want them to starve. I just want them to realize how hard it is that I worked for them. Just to get them dressed was a complete and utter chore. Not to mention the cleaning and picking up after them. Changing the bed, taking them their meals and everything. I think that it'll teach them a lesson. And the punishment is proportionate to the crime."

Jareth nodded. "If that's what you want, then I will make sure that the family never is able to hire anybody else ever again. And I'll make sure that Erna gives them lessons in cooking, too. After all, it would be a shame to make another cook work for them. And Erna is so old… She should retire and go live with her family."

"Yes," Sarah agreed as she offered him a gentle smile. "After all, if there's one person who deserves a happy ending, it's Erna."


In the end, Sarah didn't need to ride off into the sunset with a prince charming, or even a goblin king. She did need to realize that it's okay to grow up, and it's okay to admit that you've screwed up.

But the most important lesson that she learned was that even she she felt like she was in her After, there would always be a time when her After would become her Before.


Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this, please take a second to send me a review and let me know!

Also, as I mentioned in the first chapter, this has not been proof-read. If you spotted any errors, please let me know so that I can go back and fix them. Many thanks!