Her head hurt. For a very long time, the pain in her head was all she was aware of. A multiplicity of different kinds of pain - sharp, throbbing, dull, pinched, aching - and it was everywhere, inside her head and out. For what seemed like hours, she lay there praying she would fall back asleep and lose herself in oblivion. But sleep wouldn't come, and eventually she realized the pain was coming from outside her head - not forces inside it. She did her best to block it all out - every thought, every sense, everything. She focused, concentrated as hard as she could on one imaginary spot in the blackness - and gradually she lost awareness of the pain. Slowly and painstakingly, she then tried to open her senses again, one by one.
Hearing was the first to come back, but the pain was kept at bay as long as she closed her head off to everything else. Words came in, but they were not processed - only remembered, to be explored later.
"...don't understand," someone was saying. "It had to go somewhere. As long as we've ever known this place, it had a focus, a manifestation. I'm not convinced it could just dissolve into the land or the structures."
There was a long silence, then a reply came to the first speaker. "I don't have it, I've told you that. I think I would know."
"But you were in the middle of fighting it," replied the first voice, sounding puzzled.
"I know," said the second coldly. "I wasn't aware it was transferable. Had I been..."
"But you-" said the first, then hesitated. "You are still aware of something there, are you not?"
Another pause. "Yes. I still have a connection to something. It's in the same place and feels normal, as it did before all this happened, though it's blocking me off completely right now. But..." the second voice trailed off.
"But?" prompted the first.
"It feels different. I can't say how. But I know it has changed."
"You don't think that... that somehow she..."
"No!" said the second loudly. "I will not discuss that. It isn't even a possibility."
"You have to consider it eventually," said the first, not without sympathy. "And it is certain her thoughts are now closed to me."
The second voice did not reply. She decided then she knew how to open her eyes, without opening the floodgates in her head again. At first, it wasn't too bad - her vision was blurry but shapes and colors were coming in. She even felt like she could roll over and try to look around at whoever had been speaking.
She was in a dimly lit room with no windows. A fire was lit in the grate at the end of the room, but it was not close enough to cause her eyes pain. She was lying in some kind of bed - not her own, that much was certain. The room was not large, and sparsely furnished. Two figures were standing by the door, watching her slowly take stock of her surroundings. After staring at them for a while, she recognized them. Jareth and Drake. With that recognition, Sarah knew who she was again, and remembered all that had happened.
She set up abruptly, sharply. With memories flooding back in, so were questions. What had happened? Where was she? Was everything all right again? But even amid all of that, she was still careful to keep her mind closed to whatever out there had been trying to invade her head.
Her sudden movement caused both of them men to rush to her side, looks of concern on their faces. "Lie back down, Sarah," said Drake. "You've been out for a while, don't exert yourself."
Sarah frowned at him and stayed sitting up. The pain had not come back when she had moved abruptly, proving that it had been no ordinary headache. She didn't really want to think about what it was instead. "For a while?" she repeated, her voice coming out rusty. She noticed her throat was sore. "How long?"
The men exchanged a glance, then Drake replied, still frowning. "A month."
Sarahs eyebrows flew up. "Impossible," she breathed. "How did I survive a month-long coma?"
The frown deepened. Drake shrugged. "You haven't taken anything to eat or drink," he said, but not very satisfactorily by way of answer.
"Did you do anything to me?" she asked, still trying to understand, but almost wishing she didn't have to. Drake shook his head. "We tried, but soon realized it wasn't necessary. You were fine, except for being unconscious."
Sarah licked her lips. She dreaded the answers that would have to come if she kept asking questions, but saw no other choice. "How is that possible?"
Drake shrugged yet again, a helpless gesture. "We have theories, but..." he glanced at Jareth, who had a stony expression on his face, and broke off.
It didn't matter; she had a decent idea of what that theory might be, as she explored in her memories the conversation she had overheard a few minutes ago. And they might be closer to the truth than anyone wanted to admit. Before she'd closed it off, she hadn't failed to realize that the pain in her head was an awareness, an interconnectedness that was too strong for her to handle. She knew the exact moment it had come into her head, too, although the Sarah-mind she had known all her life had been unconscious at the time: when the old man had hit the ground with her almost landing on top of him. She stopped this train of thought abruptly. She refused to think about it; it would lead nowhere good.
She swallowed hard, then looked straight at Jareth. So far, he hadn't said a word to her, and she wondered what he was thinking, but then found she didn't want to know. "Send me home," she demanded. She thought she deserved that much from him, at least.
Drake looked up sharply at that. "You aren't strong enough, Sarah! You've been unconscious for too long."
They both ignored him. Jareth met her eye and he nodded. He brushed Drake and his protests aside and ignored his spluttering. He took Sarah's hand, gently, lightly, holding it as though it might fall apart at any moment. His face was still expressionless, but Sarah thought she detected a bleak sorrow. She felt sympathy for him, but held his gaze steadily and refused to retract her demand.
He didn't say anything, just nodded as if he didn't trust himself to speak.
Before she knew it, she was sitting in the grass at the park near her home. Sarah looked around; the park was full of people out enjoying the sunny weather, but no one had noticed her abrupt appearance. She sighed, and let herself fall onto her back in the soft grass, enjoying the feel of the earth beneath her, unable to face anything right now but a long nap. The pain had long receded, and somehow Sarah didn't think it was capable of coming back to find her up here. She was back, but she didn't think she could face the consequences of being back just now. And as much as she had apparently slept in the past month, she was still tired.
So she slept.
When Sarah awoke, it was dusk, and the sun had already set. She sat up and looked around. The park was emptying slowly, people tired from a day of carefree fun. The day was rapidly cooling; although it was summer, they lived far enough north that the day's warmth did not last long after the sun had gone. Curiously, Sarah felt no cold at all, though she thought she ought to. Gingerly, she mentally explored her head and found that the strange alien awareness was still there, but it was no longer fighting to invade her head and overload her brain. She made no attempt to unblock the awareness; she felt it couldn't reach her here, but there was no reason to take chances.
She stood up and brushed herself off. She noticed, startled, that she was wearing a ring - could it be the same ring that she had given the old man during her first trip to the Labyrinth? How could she have possibly gotten it from him in that fall? She stared at it, but it provided no answers.
Wearied despite the nap, she turned and began to walk home. She could use a shower, but felt no hunger, or discomfort from any of the scrapes and bruises she'd gotten during her adventure. Her palms, she remembered, had been absolutely shredded. She supposed they had healed already. She didn't really want to think about how or why they had.
She reached her house all too soon, and climbed the steps up the porch, wondering if anyone had noticed she'd been gone, wondering if she even had been gone. Time did funny things, and for all she knew, it had only been a matter of minutes since she'd left for the party that Halloween night. Or maybe it had been years.
Realizing she was no longer wearing her jeans with the witch-robe over them, but a simple white cotton dress instead, and that she had no house key, she settled on ringing the doorbell and hoped someone was home. It felt bizarre to be back, and not at all what she'd expected during all the times she'd longed to be back.
She heard feet running to the door, and a shrill call of "I'll get it!" A smile rose to her face. Toby was here, and that was good to know. The door was pulled open, and then she saw the kid, utterly unchanged from the last time she'd seen him. She grinned and stooped down to hug him tightly as he gave a yelp of surprise. He wriggled out of her embrace and grabbed her hand instead, towing her inside and shouting loudly. "It's Sarah! She's back!"
Her parents came running into the hall, stopping short when they saw her, dressed in clothes she didn't own and looking years older.
"Welcome back," said Karen in a strained voice.
The next morning, Sarah sat in calculus, trying to pretend to care about what her teacher was saying. She hadn't asked her teachers for make-up work, and hadn't offered any explanations for her week-long absence. Her parents had just assumed she'd been living with Jade. No one else had asked, and suddenly Sarah was grateful she'd never tried to make any real friends. It definitely made things easier at this point. She hadn't bothered trying to get in touch with Jade. She had never really cared about or for him, and he had known that - she really didn't owe him anything. She closed her eyes in frustration. Didn't Jade deserve a whole lot better than she could ever offer him, anyway?
Sarah soon lost track of the functions scrawled on the board and allowed herself to drift off into daydreams. No longer attempting to look alert, she rested her chin in her hand and stared off into the distance.
She ought to have discussed things with Jareth a little more before she'd left, if only to ask him to explain himself. Why had he lured her away in the first place? Why had he fought the old man (she had stopped thinking of him as "the Labyrinth" by now) instead of just sending her back? And why, why had he made no move to keep her there, but just sent her back as soon as she'd asked? She couldn't figure any of it out, and wondered if she'd ever get any answers. Probably not, she figured, unless she went back to ask... but she shied away from even contemplating that, for reasons that were much bigger than one Goblin King. Sarah shivered slightly, suddenly unable to sit still, and deliberately shifted gears in her mind.
And the pain in her head exploded.
She jumped up, unaware that the teacher was in mid-sentence, and rushed out of the room. She ran outside, avoiding the hall monitors without even thinking about it, and threw up in the grass. She emptied her breakfast and continued to dry heave. Her head was spinning, nothing was right, she wasn't where she belonged, she was in a horrible alien world, she didn't understand or remember anything but she knew this was wrong, something inside her was warring, fighting to resurface, she didn't understand it and nothing was right -
A touch on her shoulder and a concerned human voice wrenched her back into herself. Head aching, stomach heaving, she exerted her willpower and looked up at her rescuer. It was a hall monitor, looking concerned.
She was Sarah. She was in school. She'd gone to classes in this place for four years. She took deep, calming breaths of the fresh air. She was ok. Everything would be ok. Her head stopped spinning and her thoughts settled back down inside her head, and she managed to reassure the hall monitor. She slowly made her way back inside, the attack over. She took her seat again, to the blank stares of her classmates and teacher. She muttered something about having gone to the restroom. How had that happened - losing control over herself like that? She didn't know.
As she sat back down in her desk, she noticed something odd about the seat. She shifted and looked down at the floor. Vines bearing pure, tiny white flowers were curling up from the tile around the metal legs of her desk. She swallowed nervously and looked back up to the front of the class. She didn't know, nor did she want to know how they had grown there.
From that moment on, Sarah could not ignore the weird things that started happening around her. Stuff was always growing where she walked - yellow and purple peonies on the sidewalk, daisies in the backseat of her father's car, her parents' backyard was out of control although her father swore he mowed it every day. Worse, she started seeing goblins and faeries out of the corner of her eye wherever she went - at school in the most boring English classes, behind the rows of cans in the grocery store, even once when she opened the dishwasher at home to help Karen clear away the dishes from dinner. At least, she thought they were goblins and faeries - worse possibilities came to mind that she immediately dismissed. Nothing had happened to her - well, aside from that nasty encounter with a troll!
She'd been walking home one day, having firmly declined her father's offer to leave work early and pick her up from school. She had been spooked of her father's car after the daisies episode, she could admit that to herself - but she also didn't like how worried her father was over her. She'd obviously broken all ties with Jade, which should have made him and Karen happy, but they certainly had noticed something was off with her.
Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn't noticed that she passed into the shadow of a building as she cut through an alleyway - she'd done this a thousand times before and never even thought to look up.
Something heavy smashed into her shins and she gave a low cry as she fell. She twisted around to the side, hoping to evade another blow, and looked up - it was a huge, horrible, heavy troll. No mistaking it - and her with no weapon too! It had a club that was making its way to connect to her head even as she struggled to make sense of the situation - she rolled out of the way again, pushed herself up, and ran. It didn't follow her into the traffic across the street. The drivers honked at the girl who darted out into their paths, but Sarah was too worried about the troll to pay heed. She ran the whole rest of the way home, throwing glances behind her as she did.
A few days later, a more welcome magical creature showed up - Gideon. He was fully alive in her presence, but she made him understand that at school, he needed to just be a book. She was full of questions for him, but he had no answers - just vaguely unhelpful platitudes. Still, she felt better just being able to lay her hand on him in her backpack. Not all magic was bad, and she needed the reminder from time to time. Still too scared to face the future, Sarah endured every day as it came and tried her best to suppress or avoid the spontaneous wildlife.
"Hoggle, I need you."
It was useless. Useless. She'd tried every night since getting back home from the Labyrinth, but he never answered. Why she kept trying, she didn't know. He must still hold a grudge against her for not calling him earlier - but this was ridiculous! She turned her back on the mirror in a huff, as she had every night, and threw herself on her bed. So far no wild growth had invaded this, her most private sanctuary. She was safe here.
"Sarah?"
Her eyes flew open and she sat up, fully awake. "Hoggle!" she cried joyously. For it was him - the grumpy faithful silly old dwarf.
She tackled him and they both fell to the floor, Sarah laughing as though she would never stop and Hoggle trying his best to pretend displeasure. But even his cracked old ugly dwarf features couldn't hide his fondness for Sarah.
"Oh Hoggle, why haven't you come before? All these times I've called, and..."
Hoggle coughed, clearly reluctant to answer. "Well, you see... that rat Jareth..."
Sarah's face grew wide, indignant. "He stopped you from answering?"
Hoggle withdrew slightly in the face of her sparks, muttering incomprehensibly. "Hoggle," Sarah coaxed, laying her hand on his arm, "please tell me."
A lot more muttered excuses later, Sarah had the story. Jareth had apparently kept him imprisoned in an oubliette. Hoggle had given himself up for lost forever - until yesterday when all of a sudden and with no explanation, he'd released him.
Sarah listened to his story, sitting on her floor in silence. She felt that she had expected better of Jareth, and yet at the same time it came as no surprise at all. "Why d'you suppose he let you go?" she asked, trying not to seem overly interested in the answer.
Hoggle shrugged his typical half-uncaring shrug. "Who knows with him," he grunted. "I stay out of his way now."
Sarah suddenly felt an overwhelming gratitude - with so many things in her life that had changed, she was inexpressibly happy for good, steady Hoggle. Even though she knew he would squirm and protest, she grabbed him and hugged him good and hard again. "I'm so glad you're ok now, Hoggle," she explained.
As she pulled away, he hid his embarrassment under gruffness, as usual. "It ain't nothin, Hoggle's been through worse."
"I expect that's so," said Sarah with a fond smile for him. Then she grew serious as she remembered why she'd been asking for him. "Oh Hoggle - I'm in so much trouble and I don't know what to do!" she was practically wailing.
"I can't seem to get away from it - it haunts me like it's trying to take over and everywhere I go, things grow - it isn't natural - and magical creatures just seem to find me, some harmless, some not, and Hoggle there is something in my head that wants to take over me." She hissed that last part, trying to convey urgency without letting her panic show.
Hoggle received the news in silence. "I noticed you been leakin' magic all over the place, missy," he finally said. "You shine with it, like a light to anyone who knows how to see any of it. I think -" he hesitated - "I thinks you gots ta return to th'underground."
Sarah just stared at him, waiting for him to continue with a better solution. Hoggle just shook his head. "I got to look into it, I don' know nothin' right now. Jus' give me some time, alright?" he added at her crestfallen face. Sarah nodded, doing her best to stop the tears that threatened to overflow. She'd thought Hoggle would have had all the answers - he always had...
He patted her knee awkwardly. "Don' worry, missy, I won't give up 'til I find somethin', you can be sure of that." Sarah smiled weakly at him as he turned and disappeared through the mirror.
Things were looking bleaker for her every day.
Hoggle came back the next day with a charm that he promised her would mask the problem, although he warned her it was not a permanent fix. Sarah took it without much hope, but thanked him sincerely all the same. She was still grateful for his friendship and loyalty.
Sarah took each day after that one at a time. Her grades, which had never been good, fell off the deep end. Her teachers tried but couldn't penetrate her gloom. She could barely communicate with her family, who she could tell was worried about her. She was even distant with Toby, unable to participate in their usual games and unsettled by any sudden move he made. She overhead Karen and her father talking, and discovered that they thought Jade had dumped her and she was moping over a broken heart. Ha! Sarah thought triumphantly. At least her problems were important, not like all the other girls' her age.
Then she came crashing back to the reality that her problems were, indeed, more important and more pressing than a broken heart when she found that a sapling that had been planted in their front yard a month ago was now almost as large as the ancient trees on the block.
One morning, a few weeks after her adventure, Sarah woke up to what would be the last straw. Her room - her room - was covered in a fine layer of moss. It covered everything - her bed, even the part she'd been sleeping on, her vanity, her shelves, her carpet, her walls, everything but the window.
She panicked. There was no other explanation for what she did next. She called out and summoned - of all people - Jareth.
To his credit, he responded instantly. He appeared in the middle of her room and Sarah, who was completely unnerved and freaked out at that point, fell into him, drawn to him as the solution to her problems. She needed his help, she needed - well, she didn't really know what she needed. But even as she clung to him, he drew her away slightly and studied her. The necklace Hoggle had given her was visible, and she didn't bother to hide it.
Jareth frowned and grabbed the necklace, yanking it off her neck with a sharp tug. She didn't protest. He explained that it was stolen, which didn't take her by surprise, but she didn't admit who took it. He looked at it more closely, and at her.
"I see," he breathed in his deep voice, which was full of concern, "You are leaking magic. This bauble - it would have helped for a little bit - but not, I think for long. Am I wrong?"
Sarah shook her head, mutely. She was still clinging to his arms, although a couple feet of space separated them now.
He was bleaker than she'd ever seen him before. In bare terms, he laid out their situation to her. "It's you, Sarah - you are the Labyrinth now. And," he swallowed, visibly nervous or upset, "living up here Aboveground, you might as well be spilling my very lifeblood into this world. We shall not long survive like this, either of us."
Vaguely, Sarah recognized panic at this, but it wasn't news, not really - she remembered clearly how she'd struggled with that man, the old manifestation of the Labyrinth, and how her determination and youth, with the help of Ludo's magic, had overpowered him and taken it all from his listless body as they lay tangled at the base of that cliff. No, Sarah was not surprised - she had figured all that out already. Mostly, she felt sorrow for the leakage. She understood what she'd been doing to the land - letting it spill out Aboveground - and now that Jareth had forced her to face it, she knew suddenly that she'd have to go back.
Sarah couldn't quite bring herself to say all that yet. Instead, she asked why - "Why did you bring me to the Underground a second time?"
"I - I couldn't let you go. And you - gave me the perfect opportunity, I thought... you missed me as did I you." His admission was simple, free of blustering or kingly posturing.
Sarah answered slowly. "I - I think I was - though I didn't know why..." Sarah had missed a lot of things when she'd returned Aboveground, but was it fair to say... "I think perhaps, I missed you too." They contemplated each other in silence. Was it enough? Sarah couldn't tell.
A sudden knock interrupted them. "Damn," said Sarah under her breath, letting go of Jareth and jumping back at least ten feet. "It's Karen! Hide," she hissed.
Jareth just stood there, still looking at her with that bleak, solemn look on his face. It seemed he would not cooperate with her on anything, despite their newfound camaraderie. The door flew open.
"Sarah, time for breakfa-" her sentence ended in a shriek. "What have you DONE to your ROOM!" Eyes wide, she surveyed the damage - and could not fail to notice the fully grown man dressed in a ridiculous butter-smooth leather outfit, standing in the middle of her stepdaughter's suddenly-green room.
For the first time in her life, words failed her. "Ro-Robert," she said weakly, attempting to summon her husband. But her voice was far too low for him to hear.
Sarah took charge of the situation. "Karen, this is Jareth - my, ah, well, he just came here to check in on me and make sure I was all right. No, we're not sleeping together," she added firmly. "I'm sorry my room's such a mess. I'll clean it soon, I promise. We'll come down to breakfast just as soon as I get dressed - and no, not in front of Jareth!" she added at the alarm showing in her stepmother's eyes.
Sarah grabbed suitable clothing and headed to the bathroom, leaving her stepmother and the Goblin King to kill each other if they liked. At the moment, she couldn't really make herself care.
A nice hot shower and a fresh change of clothes later, Sarah emerged feeling ready to take anything on. She went downstairs and into the kitchen, where her father, Jareth, and Tobey were sitting peacefully around the table, and Karen was up busily making waffles. Not one to question a good thing, Sarah took her seat. "Morning, everyone," she said in what she hoped was a comfortable tone of voice.
"Morning, Sarah," her father said in a quiet voice. "I've been getting acquainted with your - ah - friend, Jared."
"Jareth," Sarah corrected promptly. She wouldn't want her father on the receiving end of a Goblin King temper tantrum over something as silly as a wrong name.
Her father just nodded. "Well, we've promised to have a nice chat together later."
"Da-a-ad," Sarah rolled her eyes for effect. "I'm grown up now, I think I can make my own decisions!"
"It's just that this is so fast," Karen bustled back to the table with a platter full of delicious looking waffles and set the syrup down aside them, "Sarah, you just broke up with Jade, and now this... other person... well, we're worried about you, sweetie."
Jareth perked up for the first time and showed an interest in the conversation. "Jade? Who is this?" He smiled, showing all of his pointy teeth just like a predator vampire.
Sarah swallowed, suddenly worried for Jade's life. "I'll explain later..." she said evasively, as she focused on getting waffles and syrup on her plate in spite of her little brother's insistent hogging of both.
"Well, I'm glad he's back," announced the boy. "I like him much better than Jade!"
Jareth grinned and ruffled the boy's hair, who didn't seem to mind at all - and he put up such a fuss if anyone else tried to do it!
"It's good to see you again too, kid." Karen and Robert exchanged looks, but neither questioned where Toby and this strange man with the mismatched eyes had seen each other before. Sarah reminded herself to be grateful for the small miracles in life. Somehow, everyone made it through breakfast unscathed.
Instead of getting ready to go to school, after breakfast was over, Sarah informed her parents of her intention to move out - again. They were not happy, at all - but Sarah saw Jareth sit up and take notice. He had not been expecting that from her. Sarah wondered why he had come when she'd called if he didn't expect to be bringing her back. But she had to let it go and answer her stepmother.
"Sarah, this is not acceptable. We cannot let you just drop out of school and move in with this boy - it's the worst kind of irresponsible!" Karen exclaimed.
Sarah stared at her dully, not wanting to rehash all of her fights with Karen and her father over Jade. Those fights had been silly, nothing more than a stupid rebellion because she was bored with life and because hurting people made things interesting, at least for a few minutes. She tried to explain - "This is my responsibility now, school won't matter to me where I'm going..."
But, of course, that just made it worse for them. "Sarah, do not tell me that you are pregnant..." said Karen in a deadly tone of voice.
"No!" She buried her head in her hands and sighed, out of patience and nice words, and wished that they would just understand.
Suddenly, Karen backed off and nodded, and her father's stony expression cleared. Truly frightened, Sarah realized she was granting her own wishes. Instead of ranting, her father understood - he just looked at her and asked, "Sarah, are going to be happy?"
To Jareth's evident surprise, she granted him a shy sideways smile, and assured her father that she knew what she was doing. (Even though deep inside, she really, really did not. But that wasn't the point now, was it?) Jareth, who had been passive until now, took her hand, trying to give her what reassurance he could. She hoped it would be enough.
They stood up and left the room, making their way toward the foyer. Sarah didn't bother thinking about whether she should take any of her possessions. She rather suspected that, given where they were going and what she was going to be, she wouldn't be needing anything - then a sudden thought stopped her.
"Toby," she thought suddenly, and addressed this to the Goblin King. "Will I see him again? Will we ever come back for him?"
His eyes were unreadable pools. "Maybe," was all he would say. She was unhappy with that and resolved she would find a way to stay in touch with her baby brother. They would both need it.
They left the house and walked to the park. Jareth seemed, unusually, to stay completely solemn. No smirks, no smugness, no teasing or flirting. When they arrived to the old willow and her favorite bench, he turned to her and took both of her hands. "I have to warn you - I don't know what will happen, but you might not be human anymore, and changes will come which you can't anticipate."
Sarah nodded and took her hands out of his grasp - she never had wanted things to stay the way they were, anyway. And she was already planning, had thought of an agenda that would be all her own, too. It would be all right...
"Boundaries will have to be repaired, denizens resettled after the disturbances," she said dreamily. Then, with more focus: "And Mortenna, for one, is definitely going to have to go!" Their eyes met, and Sarah felt a little thrill in her spine as they exchanged light laughter. Jareth even seemed to relax. Excitement mounted in her. He extended his hand, and she took it with another smile. "Ready to go home, then?" he asked.
"Yes."