-1"I'm afraid you're under arrest."

Jareth immediately raised his arm with a crystal ready to duel, but Etan stopped him with a harsh laugh. "I wouldn't try anything so ridiculous if I were you. Sarah is mine now, and I could do anything I wanted with her." The crystal rolled from his fingertips and shattered dully on the leaf covered floor. Slowly, Jareth stepped forward. "On your knees," Etan commanded. Jareth stood defiantly for a moment, then sank to his knees. One of the goblins placed iron manacles around his wrists and pulled him back to his feet.

"I think it will help Sarah to move on once she has witnessed your execution," a laugh simmered in his throat. "Back to the castle."

…..oOo…..

"My Princess," Etan strode into Sarah's bedchambers dressed in black silk, his sword strapped to his belt. He looked distinctly eighteenth century with his buckled shoes and waistcoat.

"Etan, where have you been?" she rushed into his arms. "I was worried." Her fingers traced his jaw line.

"There now, I was only taking care of an old friend. You do remember Jareth, I'm sure."

Sarah froze in her gentle caresses. Light seemed to flicker behind her eyes. "Of course I do," she replied slowly.

"We found him hiding in the forest, planning some sort of petty rebellion with a band of misfits." Sarah felt something cold rush through her veins and she shivered violently. "Don't worry, Precious, we will take care of him tomorrow morning."

She swallowed, her throat dry. "What is to become of him?"

"I will have him executed at dawn by decapitation with an iron blade."

"No!"

Etan's body stiffened and he stepped away. "What did you say?" His voice was barely above a hiss.

"No, you can't execute him."

Etan grasped both her wrists firmly in his own. "I thought you cared for me. I am giving you the world!"

Sarah trembled, the fear pulsing across her in waves. "I know, I do, but you can't do it. Please, just don't."

He flung her hard onto the floor and she only just saved her head from smashing into the stone. "Do you think I am merciful? Do you think I am kind?"

"Yes! Etan, please, I beg you! Do just this one thing for me and I will be utterly yours."

He sneered. "Either he shall be executed, or you shall be burned at the stake like the witch you are. It is your choice." Sarah let out a strangled sob as she propped herself against the wall, cowering away from him as he loomed over her. "Am I not merciful?"

She nodded fearfully, her mind and spirit torn.

…..oOo…..

Down in a dark dungeon cell, Jareth sat limply against a damp wall, his hands raw from where the iron had rubbed at his skin. Things had never looked so bleak, even when he was losing his kingdom. His mind was simultaneously racing and blank. His arms tingled. The magic that had returned that afternoon came and went in odd waves. He had little control over it, just a pulsing power that ran through his veins, weakened by the iron.

He pressed back as far from the metal bars as he could, wincing as the magic pulsed angrily. It was painful to be so near the iron bars, but he masked his pain as much as he could. If Etan knew how much magic he had left to drain, he would have him chained completely right now. He closed his eyes and waited for the pulsing magic to settle again, feeling as it came to center in his chest and wrists. Slowly, he cupped both his hands together as though to scoop water. He felt the magic swirl about and catch in his palms. Closing them tightly together, he tried to compress it into a crystal. His imaginings poured into the little sphere, the magic obeying weakly. Slowly, a crystal began to form in his palms, growing a hardening. By the time he was sure it was complete, he could feel that it was still as fragile as eggshells.

Through the barred air shaft, he could see stars appearing. Darkness settled over the land and penetrated the dank cell. The crystal lifted lightly from his palms and rising up through the shaft. He watched it floating away, moonlight glinting softly around its shape, and fell back against the wall again. It was all the magic he had left in him, and it was all he could do to communicate with his beloved.

…..oOo…..

Sarah sat in the window, confusion embedded in every action. Nothing made sense anymore. She was hollow, filled only with instinct, emotions that ate away at her few sources of comfort.

Jareth was here. She was unsure how she felt about this. He was kind to her, oddly enough. She remembered this much when she thought of him. But Etan was kind too. She had seen that. He had made her see that.

Fear preyed at her every emotion, latched onto her hopes and desires. Everything was because of fear.

As she watched the blinking stars, a graceful movement caught her eye. A silvery bubble floated along the breeze, swaying to a time of its own in a dance that hypnotized her and drew her in gently. It came closer, nodding and dipping through the air. Something about it left her without the dread that had built in her stomach and she relaxed into the stone, feeling the cool pressure along her spine as she flattened her back against it. Her eyes focused on the crystal as it floated before her. She stretched out her hand and it hovered above her palm. Without thinking twice, she broke it with the tips of her fingers and was awash in the pleasant sensation of bathing in a stream. Refreshing currents tugged at her hair and dress and she abandoned her body to the gentle buffet of the tide as she was dragged into the hallucination of the crystal.

…..oOo…..

Sarah walked through the empty ballroom, her footfalls echoing across the filthy marble. Decorations sagged, drooping onto the ground. Broken masks lay trampled, forgotten on the steps. Here a lady's fan torn apart, there a lost glove. Dirt and dust had tarnished the once gleaming floor and cobwebs caught along the pillars and between candles. She spotted Jareth in the middle of the room, his hair tangled and goblin regalia rumpled. His face was cast down to the ground, and he did not look up until she stood quite close to him.

Jareth did not smile when he saw Sarah. She wore jeans and a vest over a puffy-sleeved blouse. It was exactly how Jareth remembered her; that defiant girl that had intrigued and plagued him so powerfully that he had given his whole kingdom just to fathom it. She glanced down and smoothed the shirt self-consciously, as though she felt his reminiscing thoughts.

The longer Sarah stood facing Jareth, the more lonely she became. Even as he reached out to touch her cheek, she felt so utterly alone.

"What have I done?" she murmured softly. "Why am I so empty?" Jareth said nothing, but traced a finger across her lip. "I feel alone again, like I did before you were a part of me, before you came back into my world." Her reserve was so broken that the tears fell unnoticed. Her confusion befuddled her all the more as the feelings of compassion began to overrule her loyalty to Etan. "I cannot love either of you wholly, and it is tearing me apart."

A stillness enveloped the room that juxtaposed Sarah's turmoil. Jareth held one hand to her damp cheek, the dark magic that had crossed her during her confinement snapped like static through his fingers. He brought another hand to her neck, brushing away the crackling magic. A flicker of the old Sarah shone though her lifeless eyes and he traced his hands across her shoulders and over her back as he pulled her into a tight embrace.

Sarah unleashed the torrent of tears that she had held since her captivity. She wept all the emotion that she had never released as a loveless adult, alone in a world of shallow colleagues and hypocrisy. She cried out all the trauma and loneliness she had contained as a confused child, the bitterness that her mother had left her when she had left her family for another one. All of the fears and drama that she had been too strong to show fell as crystalline tears down her cheek to merge with Jareth's.

Jareth had not cried since he was a young boy. He was a prince, a king, and not meant to cry. Even now, as he felt the injustice done to the creature that had so captivated him, he felt it nearly impossible to cry. He had to remain strong for her, to hold her up as her world fell down, yet he sensed that these tears would bring her the comfort that nothing else could.

And so he cried quietly onto her cheek while she wept onto his, and they stood wrapped in their tight embrace feeling for all the magical world that time had stopped. Slowly, as their sadness subsided, they separated and stood only holding hands.

Jareth finally spoke. "What has he done to you to make you think that he loves you?"

Sarah blinked rapidly, her clumped eyelashes fluttering in confusion. "He cares for me," she said at length. "He has good intentions. I know it seems absurd to you, but you must understand that there is good in him."

"He has abused you," Jareth stated. "He has starved you, tortured your mind into believing in something that is not there."

Sarah heaved a shaky sigh and squeezed his hands tighter. "He is going to execute you tomorrow. He tells me I must reject you or he will execute me as well."

"I know. And what do you think?"

She cast her head down and shook it slightly. "I cannot think anything. I do not want you to die, Jareth, I-" her voice caught again. "I wish that there were some solution to this, but-"

Jareth silenced her with a finger to her lips. "Do you believe that there is a solution?"

"I-"

"Do you believe that we can survive this?" He implored her with his eyes to speak of hope.

She tried to set her face, but her lips trembled slightly. "I do not see how I can exist without hurting either of you."

"Sarah, will you trust me?"

She stuttered, "wh-what?"

"When it comes time to make a decision, will you trust me to make it for you?"

She thought frantically. "Will you hurt Etan?"

"You must trust me. Trust me, Sarah. Do as I say and I will save you from this mess."

Sarah gave one brief sob, then nodded, her lip caught between her teeth to hold it. "I trust you."

Jareth felt the magic draining from the crystal as the power began to transfer back to Sarah. Their hallucination was fading. "Trust me Sarah, and I will guide you." She nodded again, more fervently this time and their images faded more. He forced a smile that she matched shakily.

Sarah called out through the fog, "I will be there for you," and their vision blinded to white, then black. She felt the tugging in her hair again as she was tumbled back to her window, landing gracefully back where she had been before the crystal.

She could feel something surging through her veins, pulsing like the strength she sought to regain, and she understood clearly what needed to be done.