Chapter Twenty-one

"Sarah, you have some visitors." Sarah ignored Jareth and kept her head firmly buried beneath the pillows. "Sarah," his tone grew sharp and the pillows were plucked from her head leaving her face exposed.

"I do not want to see anyone," she said in a flat voice.

"See if you can get anything from her," Jareth sighed and left the room the door clicking locked behind him.

"My lady?" Sarah sat up shocked to find Hoggle, Sir Diddymus and Ludo crowding around the bed. She felt her cheeks warm up as the horror of how she looked was etched on their faces.

"I thought goblins weren't allowed up here?" She asked Hoggle.

"He made an exception; he told us he would bring you to us today but..." Hoggle trailed off and Sarah nodded. She wasn't in much of a fit state to be walking around at the moment. The small walk from the bed to the bathroom made her feel as if she had run a marathon. She forced herself to sit up and propped the pillows up so she could sit with her back to them. She patted the bed and Hoggle sat on the edge, she helped weakly pull Sir Diddymus up next to him and Ludo sat on the floor. "He told us where you were," Hoggle said after a long silence.

"Did he tell you why?" Sarah's voice was bitter and she clenched her hands into tight fists.

"He said you felt like a prisoner."

"Not felt. Feel." Tears blurred her eyes but Sarah hurriedly blinked them away. "Hoggle...don't you understand?"

"I do...and I don't." Hoggle wouldn't look up at her and Sir Diddymus carefully waddled over to her and sat on her lap. Without thinking Sarah reached out and scratched him behind his ears smiling as he right leg began to bounce up and down happily. "Sarah...you won't like what I'm about to say." Then don't say it! But Sarah couldn't bring herself to snap at Hoggle, none of this was his fault. In fact had it not been for him she would never have gotten as far as she did. She sometimes wondered if she would have even broken through the first barrier and passed the gate. "Jareth does care for you...and you are lucky." Sarah opened her mouth to protest but Hoggle quickly cut her off. "When you lost the Labyrinth Jareth held the right to keep both you and Toby, he could have had you both turned into goblins...or worse." What could be worse? Sarah wanted to ask but that seemed an insensitive thing to ask Hoggle. If he believed there could have been a worse fate for him then she did not want to disagree, perhaps it gave him some sort of comfort?

"His majesty can be cruel my lady," Sir Diddymus turned his small furry head so that his eyes locked onto hers. "He will not change...but he does feel something for you."

"He said he loved me yesterday," Sarah whispered feeling tears prick her eyes once more. This time she didn't bother to blink them away and she let them slide down her cheeks. "But how could he lock me away like that? I wanted to die." After the second day she had refused to touch the water that the goblins brought down for her. Locked in the cold dark cell she had begun to lose her mind. She'd been consumed by paranoia, had Jareth put something in the water? Some sort of potion to make her swoon and fall in love with him? If I haven't already. She questioned her own feelings for Jareth as much as she questioned his. How could she love this man who treated her so cruelly? "He hasn't got a shred of humanity..."

"He ain' technically human," Hoggle pointed out, "he might look like a human Sarah but looks can be deceiving. I'm more human than him...an' look a' me." Sarah kissed the top of Hoggle's head and he blushed. He was right, half the time Sarah forgot that Jareth was a mythical creature himself although she'd never seen anything to make her suspect he wasn't human.

"Will I be like him?"

"No," all three responded at once and Ludo gave a small roar of disgust which sent rocks crumbling from the ceiling.

"Oh Ludo please don't be upset," Sarah pleaded looking nervously at the door. She didn't want Jareth storming in and scaring Ludo into bringing the tower down around them.

"You will always remain as human, some of Jareth's powers may pass to you and you will be immortal. But you won't be a true fae." Sarah breathed a sigh of relief; she felt better knowing she would maintain her humanity. "My lady...we have been looking into ways to get you home," Sarah sat up suddenly alert and eager but Sir Diddymus shook his head. "It truly is impossible...perhaps it would be easier to do as his majesty says and just accept your fate? You shall always have us..." Sarah nodded feeling numb; it was different hearing that she couldn't go home from her friends. When Jareth said it to her she half thought he said it out of cruelness, not because it was true.

"Perhaps this is your fa'e," Hoggle squeezed her hand gently and Sarah smiled weakly. "We don' think he'll really force you to turn children inta goblins..." Sarah wasn't as optimistic but she forced herself to smile, they only wanted to help and she didn't have the heart to let them see how distraught she was.

Each time she glanced over at the window she could see the day was passing by quickly and when the sky turned to a deep orange Jareth returned to the room. She hugged each of the trio in turn and watched as they sadly trundled from the room.

"How do you feel?" Jareth sat beside her and once more began spoon-feeding her soup. Sarah shrugged and swallowed a mouthful, her fever had gone down considerably and she was able to swallow the soup without it feeling as if rocks were being thrown into her belly. She studied Jareth as she thought about what her friends had said, this man beside her wasn't human. Jareth met her gaze and she knew he could tell what she was thinking, sighing he set the bowl down and cupped her chin gently with his leather gloved hand. "Just because I am not human does not mean I do not know how to love one," he leant forward and pressed his lips to hers. Sarah felt herself beginning to respond, her hand wound itself into his feathery soft hair while the other lightly pulled at his shirt to pull him closer. What are you doing? Startled she pushed herself away from Jareth and blushed furiously. "How long are you going to play this game?" Jareth asked clearly irritated.

"This isn't love, it's not right." Sarah said stubbornly trying to clamour from the bed. Jareth grabbed her and firmly kept her in place.

"You are too weak to go storming off," he sighed. "What will it take for you to believe that I care about you? That I love you?"

"Nothing. Because I'll never believe it," Sarah shrugged and felt her heart grow heavy with the realisation that this was probably true. She might surrender her body to him; she might even convince herself that she loved him. But she knew it wouldn't last. That she'd soon begin questioning his feelings for her. "If you loved me you wouldn't have locked me up for a week with no food –"

"Sarah do you understand what I have done for you? How generous I have been to you?"

"Generous? What have you done that's generous?"

"Everything!" Jareth snapped standing up and for a split second Sarah found herself standing on a circular platform with columns floating around them. Jareth was dressed in his white leggings, white shirt and the flowing cloak. When she blinked she was back in his bedroom but she could tell Jareth too had sensed the déjà vu. "I have the right to turn you into a goblin, and your brother. He never should have left the Labyrinth. I have given you a gift so that you can watch over Toby, your family and friends."

"But I cannot talk to them!"

"What good would that do? If your family were able to talk to you surely they would be upset with what you had done, what had happened. Knowing they had lost you forever. And seeing them upset would surely distress you further would it not?" Sarah looked at him feeling slightly shocked, it was almost as if he had thought about her wellbeing all along. "You agreed to me wiping every trace of you from their lives, so that they could go on living in peace. I am sorry I could not do the same for you...but perhaps that is punishment for your selfishness. You say you did not mean the words but nevertheless you said them. You have read the Labyrinth; you have read it every day since you first learnt to read. Part of you longed for the Labyrinth to exist. For me to exist." He smiled wolfishly at her and joined her on the bed. "And when you first saw me admit it, you longed to be mine." His hands gently unlaced the front of her nightgown and pulled it down exposing her shoulders.

"Stop it," Sarah whispered her cheeks aflame, in an instant he had gone from caring to predatory.

"Eternity with me will be interesting, will it not Sarah?" He laughed at her as she pulled her nightgown back up and clutched it tightly to her throat. "I locked you in the dungeon so you would appreciate the freedom you have. Yes I watch you, but can you blame me? Who was the one who tried to escape in the middle of winter?"

"What choice did I have?"

"You could have stayed. You could have earned my trust. But you decided to throw it away and run. You chose to go back on your word. You exchanged your life for your brother's and then you tried to flee. Hardly the actions of an honest woman is it? So how can I trust you will not run away when you are alone? If I was able to trust you, I would leave you in peace." Sarah thought on these words but she just couldn't accept that she would never return home. "When we are married you will have privacy if you so wish it."

"How do you know I will not try to run away?"

"You can try..." Jareth shrugged carelessly and picked up the bowl once more. "Come, you should finish this before it grows cold." Obediently Sarah opened her mouth so he could spoon feed her once more, she wanted to take the bowl in her own slender hands but they trembled and she knew she would simply slosh the soup over the sides of the bowl.

"You act as if I have more chance of escaping now then when I am your queen..."

"You have no chance Sarah, but now you are in more danger so I have to watch over you. You can die while we are not married."

"But –"

"No more Sarah," Jareth warned, "any questions you have I will gladly answer, and truthfully, when you are queen. When I know you will be able to accept the truth. Now do as I say and finish this soup, I would rather not have to put you back in the dungeons." Sarah met his cold eyes at this statement and shuddered.