Chapter XX: Ultimate Hardship

For six days she was stuck in the hospital. Sarah rolled over in her hospital bed with the number one now ringing in her mind. She heard the murmurs of soft whispers just on the outside of her door. She recognized one as her father's voice and the other one must have been one of the doctors that were seeing to her. Her eyes focused on the white ceiling again and watched as the shadows dance on the ceiling from the tree outside of her window. She didn't really care anymore, but she wanted to get out of the hospital. She was still a bit weak, sure, but she needed to find her way back to the Labyrinth and she couldn't do that stuck in a hospital. She only had the day she was in, and she would use every hour of it if she had to.

She had to smirk of the memory of her a couple of days ago screaming at the nurses and doctors to let her go home. They were wasting her time. There was nothing they could do for a broken heart or for magic. They didn't understand it and most of them probably didn't even believe in it.

The doctor and her father finally came into the room, but Sarah didn't move her head toward them or even give them any recognition. The doctor cleared his throat, but once he got no response from Sarah her father stepped in.

"Sarah, honey?" he asked and put a hand over her arm, "I'm glad to see you're awake again. How are you feeling?"

"Tired," she said and looked at him, "Can I go home yet?"

"We'll see," he nodded at her and then turned to the doctor, "What are your plans?"

"Maybe we shouldn't discuss this in front of your daughter," the doctor tilted his head toward the door.

"It's okay," Sarah finally looked at the doctor, "Not like I can't take more bad news. Just tell my dad, I probably won't be listening anyway."

The doctor sighed and went on with a nod. For the first part Sarah didn't listen to what he was saying. She tried to find the comforting gestures that she was sure Jareth was sending her from the other side of his crystals. For the past day or so, she had felt them grow further and further away as if they were fading from her. She was losing her grip on magic and it was falling away from her. So were her chances of going back to her real home. Each and every day that passed, she felt colder and colder as if she couldn't keep her heart going.

"If we can't find the source of her weakness, she will die, Mister Williams," the doctor's voice cut through her focus. She could die from being on this side. It was her own living Hell. She turned her head toward the two men as the doctor said the last bit of information, "We've done all the tests we can do. There are a few results that we need to get back, but I think the best thing for her is to take her home and hopefully we will find something."

Her father was going to take a breath to say something when Sarah cut in before him, "How much time do you think I have if you don't find something?"

"Sarah, don't talk like that," her father said with a hitch to his voice. Sarah looked strangely at her father. Before she went into the Labyrinth the second time, her father did not even come to her shows to show his support. Now, here in this living nightmare, he didn't want to know about the chance of losing her.

"Cover your ears if you don't want to hear this dad, but I need to know," she turned from her father back to the doctor, "You don't even know if I will last through the rest of this day, do you?"

The doctor looked at her closely and then slowly shook his head. She looked back at the ceiling and then closed her eyes, "Can I go home now?"

"Yes, Sarah," her father said as he picked up a small bag that had her clothes in it, "I'll take you back home."

Sarah's father took her home where Karen waited patiently on the couch for their return. She hugged Sarah when she walked through the door and helped her up to her old room while her father brought in some of her clothes from her apartment. Karen opened the door for Sarah and ushered her into the room just like she remembered it. Fantasy and creatures from her own imagination flooded the room and she noticed that her old vanity was back against the wall next to her window.

"I thought I had that at my apartment," she pointed to the vanity and then looked back at her father.

"I brought it here, just in case you had to come home. I know how much you love that thing," he said with a tilt of the head, "Everything is still in it so you shouldn't be missing anything from it at all."

"Thank you," Sarah said in an empty tone. She sat down on her bed and looked out the window, hoping that she would see a white owl sitting on the tree branch. Nothing was there but the tree itself.

"Do you want anything to eat, Sarah?" Karen asked as Sarah's father put down the small bag of some of her clothes.

"No," she shook her head, "I'll be okay for now. Thank you, Karen."

"We'll be in our room if you need us," her father said carefully and then took Karen by the hand out the door and to their room down the hall.

"If you should need us," Sarah repeated and saw that the door was closed.

She sighed and walked to the middle of the room. Everything around her way too familiar and yet so foreign. This room was supposed to be Toby's by now. All of this stuff should be either packed away or somewhere at her apartment by now. There should be a boy's bed in the corner and a few jet airplanes hanging from the ceiling being chased by dragons. With drawings of goblins and fairies on every bit of empty wall space, and a picture that looked suspiciously like a Goblin King near the window. But how could there be when that little boy never existed in this world? He was on the other side, heir to the Goblin Kingdom where he will stay.

Sarah took a few steps and sat at her vanity to look in the mirror once again, "So it has come down to this, has it?"

Nothing answered her but the silence in her room. She didn't feel any other presence and she continued talking to her reflection, "It's do or die quite literally. In a days time I will either be where I belong or dead. Either way, it's much better than where I am at, isn't it?"

She looked around the room again and focused on the small clock on her wall. By her calculations she had a little less than fourteen hours left. She then looked at her reflection, "I wish, oh how I wish, that I could just go home. Show me the way, Labyrinth. You are the only way back, just show me the way, tell me what I must do and I will follow. You have dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, but you have always given me what I needed. You gave me maturity and focus when I had none. And you gave me a heart when mine was ice. Please, help me find a way back. So I can help you as well."

She closed her eyes and felt a pinch of a memorable sensation at the back of her mind and at the tips of her fingers. She opened her eyes and looked into the eyes of her own reflection. There she saw something different, something older than she knew. Something that was older than time that danced and swirled in the green of her eyes. From behind her reflection she caught a sparkle of glitter and a hint of magic. She turned around and her eyes landed on a single, white feather in the middle of her floor.

She smiled hesitantly and got out of her seat to pick up the feather. It suddenly jumped from her reach and landed a foot or two away from her. She stood still for a moment and then took another step toward the feather where it jumped yet again from her. She smiled brightly at it and crouched down as if to get eye level with it.

"Just what do you have planned, little feather?" she asked it and made sure that her shoes she was wearing were tied tighter and took another step toward the feather where it went to her door and slid underneath it. Sarah carefully opened her door so not to alert her father or Karen. She said a silent goodbye to them both and didn't look back. They wouldn't remember her in the morning.

She gripped the light jacket she had on tighter to her frame and crept down the stairs after the floating feather, "Where are you leading me?"

She left out the front door and into the late afternoon streets. No one else saw the feather that Sarah seemed to be chasing. They only saw a young woman walking briskly down the street, watching the pavement pass under her feet. Soon the feather went through a small bit of brush and came out where Sarah used to come to the park to pretend when she was still young.

"This is where you would watch me," she said to Jareth even though he wasn't there. She looked for the feather and saw it float over to the stone bench. There was something on the bench where the feather had landed. Sarah walked cautiously to the bench and saw the small bit of red. It was the book. The Labyrinth itself.

"Though my will is as strong as yours," her voice escaped her throat as she took each hesitant step forward, "…and my kingdom as great…"

She looked down at the book and touched the gold lettering on the front of her book, "You will always have power over me."

Once those words left her mouth she felt something was different about herself. Her strength returned and she smiled as something familiar swirled around her and through her body. She opened the small book and looked through the pages as it told of her story through the Labyrinth to claim back her brother. Then toward the end she found a new ending- a whole new chapter. Something that told of a new beginning and a new path to take. She looked from the pages of the book and into the shrubbery at the edge of the clearing.

And she gasped.

Jareth sat in the library window with a book in one hand and a foggy looking crystal in the other. As much as he tried, he wasn't able to watch Sarah. Over the past few days he had found it harder and harder to watch her and see her progress or her fall into depression. He wanted to make sure that she knew he was watching over her. And some how she always did. He saw that secretive lift in the corner of her mouth every time she felt him.

Now, it just seemed like a deep haze. And he wanted to see her. To see her find her way back to the Labyrinth. She only had the night left… a good thirteen hours by his count. She beat the time before, she can do it again.

"How is she doing?" Toby came into the library with a couple of books he set back down on the side table.

Jareth set down his own book and let the crystal fade into the night sky, "The same the last I checked. She was still in that healing facility."

"The hospital," Toby nodded.

"I don't see why you humans go there to be healed," Jareth muttered and stood from the window ledge and walked to Toby, "All they have seemed to do is make more misery for your sister and hinder her progress."

"Sometimes they do that," Toby shrugged. He looked distant in his eyes and he focused on a string that was hanging off one of the cuffs on his shirt.

"She will make it Toby," Jareth reassured him.

"How do you know?" Toby urged.

"She has to," Jareth answered and rubbed the top of Toby's head, "So you finish with your reading that Grindle gave you?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"I thought you weren't that much of a reader," Jareth sat in one of the over sized chairs and Toby laid down on one of the couches.

"Well, when Grindle threatens to take my daily ride out of the picture until I finish my readings," Toby waved his hand in the air to elaborate his tale, "So, is it true that some goblins were not children at all and born goblin?"

"It is true," Jareth nodded, "They are a strange breed all their own it seems. They-"

"Your majesty!" Grindle came into the library slightly out of breath and curtsied before King and heir.

"What's the matter, Grindle?"

"There… there is a runner in the Labyrinth," she huffed and took a few evening breaths before she looked at Jareth and Toby.

"But I have not taken a child," Jareth stood from his chair and Toby followed him.

"The lichens saw them enter the front gates without any help and continue on through the outer walls with no help of the worm," she reported, "They say that she may be a witch."

"Come now, Grindle," Jareth rolled his eyes, "You know witches are only real in the Aboveground."

"They are?" Toby asked with a tilt of his head.

"Well, they believe themselves to be anyway," Jareth patted Toby on the head and then turned back to Grindle, "I will search this woman out. If it is another fae come to comfort me in my mourning, I will personally ship them back to the chicken pox infected Fairy Kingdom."

Toby chuckled and tried to conceal it as a cough. Jareth smirked down at him. The last woman fae that showed up on the Goblin Kingdom doorstep showed up a few days prior and left that same night, thanks to the ingenuity of Toby and Singefoot. Jareth had no doubt her encounter was the reason why no others have made their way to his doorstep.

"Grindle, please look over Toby," Jareth turned toward the window, "This should not take me long."

"Jareth," Grindle said quietly and he turned back to her, "… how much longer?"

"Twelve hours," he said in an even quieter voice.

Toby and Grindle watched him leap off from the window and turn into a white owl. He soon faded in the light of the moon and Toby sighed.

"When will I get to learn how to do that?" he asked Grindle.

"The same time you will lean how to fly," she answered and put her hands on his shoulders, "You aren't worried for your sister?"

"I think Hoggle got it right," Toby said with a proud smile, "If anyone could do the impossible. It would be my sister."

"It would indeed," she nodded, "Now come. Who ever this intruder is will probably cause quite a stir at the castle. Let's go distract the rest of the goblins down stairs."

"Oh! Can we play chicken launch again?" Toby asked excitedly.

"As you wish, young master," she giggled.

Jareth flew over the Labyrinth from the beginning of the front gates to the ends of the trash heap, and he couldn't find the intruder that Grindle spoke of. He landed to talk to the lichen and the worm first to see if they actually got a good look at the figure that walked past them. They knew that it was a woman by her long dress and gaited walk, but couldn't tell who she was for the large cloak that covered her head and face. They also knew one other thing about this woman. She held magic, something powerful and fantastic. Something that they had felt before, and yet never before.

'Confusing worm…' Jareth thought as he took to flight once more.

He flew again over the entirety of the Labyrinth and grew frustrated. Who ever this intruder was, powerful or not, was cutting his time short. And all he wanted to do was be there for Sarah when she would win. For she couldn't fail. It wasn't in his plans and definitely not in the fate that he had begun to write for them both.

After five hours of finding nothing he flew back toward the castle. He would find the intruder soon. Especially if this was another fae woman to suit him, she would be at his door soon enough. Jareth settled on the ledge of his castle walls and looked down on his gardens. Maybe he would have Hoggle keep a look out for any suspicious girls in the area. He was good at finding those. Or those finding him.

Jareth scanned the area for the dwarf, but then his eyes focused on the circle where his mother's fountain used to be and the empty spot where her willow tree once sat. But something was different. There was a cloaked woman sitting in the center of it.

He quickly flew down and transformed into his fae self. His clothes melded to his body and he wore his impressive cape just to challenge the woman's cloak.

"I see that you made it all the way to my gardens in only five hours," he said in a smooth tone and looked down at the figure. As he got closer he felt the magic that the lichens and the worm had talked about. She also had that aura, that feeling that they had met before. He looked down at her hands which he only thought were only folded in her lap was held a little rectangle of red, "What is that?"

"A book," she said softly and shifted so that he could see that there was a seedling for another willow tree to her side.

"That voice," he knelt down quickly and tilted the woman's head up to look at what laid under the hood. There, two bright green eyes stared back at him and a small smile that he knew so well, "Sarah…"

"I'm right on time," she laughed a little with tears in her eyes. She stood with him and they looked at one another for a moment or two before she waved the book a little between them, "I just had to follow the right lines. I am kind of surprised that you didn't feel me enter the Labyrinth sooner. I thought th-"

Jareth quickly stepped forward and swooped Sarah up in a kiss and spun her around. Her arms wound around the back of his neck and his arms tightened just slightly around her waist to make sure that she was real. He set her back on the ground and ended their kiss to look her in the eyes again.

"I thought that I had died," he whispered and kissed her softly once more before he kissed both of her eyelids and then her nose, "I thought that I would never live again."

"I believe that we both did for a while there," she placed her head on his shoulder and nuzzled his neck with her nose and placed soft kisses on his pulse. She smiled as her mind reminded her, 'This is real.'

Suddenly her cloak hood dropped back and Jareth noticed something different about his Sarah. He narrowed his eyes and pulled her back just slightly. He ran his finger over her new pointed ears under her straight, silk hair.

"You've changed," he let his fingers comb through her hair and titled his head, "You've been changed fae."

"I guess the land gave me a new gift," she wiggled her fingers and a crystal appeared on her fingertips, "To keep a tab on you, I believe."

"A future queen will need to keep up with her king, won't she?" he smiled.

"She would indeed," she put her nose to his and smiled in contentment, "I will never leave again."

"How do you know this?"

"Because I wish it so."

"Ah, well in that case," Jareth took both of her hands in his and then kissed them both. He then fell to one knee and looked up at her.

"What are you doing?"

"I think it is custom in the Aboveground for the man to ask his intended to be his wife on one knee," Jareth said with a smirk. As he took a breath to actually ask the question, Sarah put her fingers over his lips.

"What's the custom in the Underground?"

He smiled and laughed a little as he stood up and held her by the hips. He looked her in the eyes and placed his forehead to hers, "Be my queen, Sarah."

"Not as romantic as I thought it would be," she sighed and then nodded against him, "I accept."

"There was no defying me," he smirked and she laughed in his arms as he kissed her and conjured a ring on her finger.