When you're not here to share my days and nights

My life is so incomplete

For you are my heart, my soul

The 'oneness' I had known to seek

Without you I merely exist from day to day

With you I know that I will find

All that I have been searching for

My completeness, my eternal peace of mind

-Denise Mangano, Keeper of My Dreams

Juncture

Chapter 10: Ligature

Hoggle realized the fae's trick almost immediately after he left the throne room. Jareth knew he didn't have to order the dwarf to Sarah. Hoggle would make his own way to her out of concern.

He played right into Jareth's hands.

But frankly, the truth of the matter was still at hand. The Labyrinth was going out and it was taking Sarah with it like some love-sick kamikaze accident. She had to be aware and leave for the Underground.

It was then that he heard the familiar call that always brought Hoggle to Sarah.

"Hoggle, I need you," She said. "I need you to get a message across to a certain pest."

In any other situation he would have laughed at her tone of voice but this was not the time.

"I think you'll be deliverin' that message personally, Sarah."

Sarah's amused face suddenly dropped.

"Is everything all right, Hoggle?" She asked, sitting up and edging closer to the mirror.

"Have you been feeling well?" He asked, ignoring her question.

She laughed a bit and shrugged. A sniffle followed.

"I'm a bit under the weather, just a cold. I think Toby brought it home." Sarah said.

He wanted to grab her shoulders and scream that it was just the beginning of so much more. But Hoggle controlled himself; he had to tread this situation lightly.

"Sarah," He said, looking down. "You have to come back Underground."

"Oh ha," Sarah pretended to laugh with a smile. "Very funny. Your Goblin King impersonation is improving."

Hoggle shook his head. "I wish I was jokin'."

Sarah swallowed lightly and blinked. "I don't know what's going on Hoggle, but you know I can't return."

"You have to!" Hoggle yelled. "Damn Jareth."

"What did he do?" She asked, her voice turning to stone.

"He didn't do anything," He said begrudgingly. "In fact it would have been better if he was behind this. Then maybe it wouldn't be so bad…"

"You're scaring me, Hoggle." Sarah nervously said.

He couldn't beat around the bush any longer. There was no time.

"When you won, that damned thing gave you a piece of itself. You ain't there, Sarah, you ain't there."

"Well of course I'm not there. Why would I be? And what do you mean by piece of itself?" Sarah asked, her eyebrows furrowed together.

"That's the problem! You ain't there. It needs you Underground. You're walking around with a piece of its essence so far away. It's dying, Sarah, the Labyrinth is dying." He spoke so quickly, even borrowing words from Jareth's explanation that Sarah could hardly keep up.

"Well surely Jareth can help it," Sarah tried to reason, not liking at all what she figured to be the solution to the Labyrinth's problem was: Her.

"By bringing you Underground he would be helpin' it," Hoggle nearly whispered. "And he would be helpin' you."

When Sarah looked lost, he sighed.

"You're dyin' Sarah. Right along with that damn thing. That piece inside you is just crumblin' away, takin' you with it."

She stared, her mouth ajar. And then slowly, her mouth closed and she looked down.

"And he…he can't take this piece out of me?" Sarah whispered.

Hoggle, knowing exactly who she was referring to, shook his head.

"He would have done so already. Believe it or not, the rat is actually lookin' out for your wellbeing." The words that defended Jareth seemed so foreign to Hoggle, yet he knew them to be sadly true.

"You understand why you have to come back, right?" He continued cautiously.

"I do, but I'm not," She said, "Coming back, I mean."

"Sarah, you're dyi—"

"It's a cold!" She yelled, trying to convince herself more than Hoggle. She knew he wouldn't lie to her.

Hoggle wanted to scream. Jareth was too damn proud to come to Sarah and Sarah was too damn proud to come to Jareth. Even though a life was on the line.

"Sarah, please—"

"No!"

"Your life is dangling here!" Hoggle had never rose his voice at Sarah, not since their adventure in the Labyrinth. "Open your eyes! It's not just about you and your pride. If you was gone, what would I do without my friend? What would your family do? Ludo? Didymus?"

Tears were slipping from Sarah's eyes, but they rolled down in silence. She did not sob.

"What kind of life would I lead in a place where I wasn't happy to be in?" She asked, one tear dripping from her top lip and down to her bottom.

"A life, at least," Hoggle reasoned. "You'd have the chance to watch Toby grow up from afar…you'd still have us."

Sarah wiped her eyes in angry movements.

"I'll think about it," She finally said after a moment.

Hoggle couldn't believe she'd want to think about a solution that would save her life. Most people would jump at the chance to continue on in a place where magic flourished. But, Sarah wasn't most people.

"Don't think too long," He said to her, slowly closing their connection. "You'll hurt your brain."

The mirror faded to her reflection and Sarah was left with her numbered days.

It was only two nights later that Sarah awoke with a fever and her vision severely blurred. Her whole body ached.

Karen came up to her bedside regularly to keep the poor girl hydrated but her rising temperature made the older woman worry. Sarah just smiled at her and told her not to worry. It was just a cold she'd say. Sarah would not mention to her step-mother how it hurt to move and how her breaths were a struggle to let out. No, she would not cause more worry.

It was when the crushing pressure on her chest formed and spread that she realized that this was how she was going out. Like any person, Sarah had always hopped for a peaceful death in her sleep.

Now she was leaving in pain and fright.

"I'm sorry Hoggle," She rasped out. "I'm sorry I couldn't be the friend you needed."

A friend that would have put her fear of the unknown aside like she did when she was fifteen to be with her friends and save her life. A friend that wouldn't have yelled at him for just wanting to keep her safe.

Hadn't Jareth done that though? Didn't she disregard him for wanting to keep her safe? Did she not toss him aside again for wanting her utmost protection?

It hurt to laugh but she did. Sarah laughed at her own stupidity and stubbornness.

"I wish I could apologize to you, Jareth," She said. Sarah felt like she was in a daytime television drama. Like the camera was probably zooming in on her final moments as she dramatically closed her eyes.

She smiled. She always dreamed of being a star like her mother.

Sarah could feel her heart slowing even though one would assume that fear would accelerate it. No, it was her heart making its final beats.

She wondered what the Labyrinth looked like, if it was even still standing. She tried to imagine Jareth's face and found that she felt too guilty to imagine it for too long.

She was going to die in such a pathetic way. She could have lived on in a magical world if she had just agreed to it. Why didn't she?

"You thought you had more time, did you not?" Someone said, but she didn't have the energy to turn her head. "To think over the decision logically. You thought that you wouldn't succumb so fast. When a building or structure falls, Sarah, it does not do so slowly. It is quick as pieces of itself crumbles in and on top of itself."

Sarah could tell now that it was Jareth. Was he really lecturing her at a time like this?

"Has it fallen?" She asked in a hushed voice. She wondered if he even heard her.

"Not completely. There still lies a chance to save it," He said, and she could hear him coming closer. "And you."

Carefully, Jareth turned her to face him.

"You wished me here again, did you know that? To apologize." He said, knelt down so he was eye-level with her.

"I'm sorry," She said without hesitation. "I'm sorry I didn't see your true intentions from the start. The whole stalking thing bothers me still but I realize the reason now."

Jareth smiled at her amused tone of voice. Even on her deathbed she could see light.

"I wish there was more time, as cheesy as that sounds." She continued.

"Dear girl time has no meaning." He said to her.

She shook her head. "It's everything Aboveground."

He grinned wider and brushed hair away as he leaned into her ear.

"Than come to a place where time is nothing."

AN: It takes Sarah to be dying for her to finally see some decency in our poor Goblin King. Wowie.

Reviews are appreciated!