Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jareth coughed. Rolled over. Drew in long sucking breaths of life.

Sarah thrust herself at him, her body quivering, the tears racking her body. His gaze drew onto hers, his eyes at half-mast.

"Sarah, kitten," he said, his voice soft as he gave warning. "You are crushing me." His pleasure of having her near was evident in his smile.

She kissed and kissed and kissed his face, the frantic fervor making her ignore his recent battle wound, slowly healing to a cooled patina. "I love you, I love you, my darling, oh how I love you!" she panted, repeating her affection in tempo time.

He beamed at her affection, touching her cheek. "I love you, also." He crooned, "There is nothing to fear now, my precious thing."

"You were nearly dead," she said in a harsh moan. "I felt you slip away from me."

His silence told her that he knew. His complacence pantomimed against the fear she had endured. "I thought you always healed. You weren't healing." An accusation made light, with the stock of fury behind it.

Again, silence.

"Jareth?"

He sighed, struggling to explain, to find words that wouldn't flame a fire. "The last we spoke, there was much anger."

She nodded. "Yes." She bit at her lip, chagrined. Much of that anger came from her.

"I am sorry for it." He made a frown, slight and self-condemning. She shook her head, not willing to give up responsibility for her own remarks.

He pulled her tighter to his body. She cradled in, her head under his chin. As he spoke, the rumble from his voice to his chest threaded through her. It was a comfort, though his words were not.

"Sarah," he whispered, "I begged, pleaded to the great Unknown, for your life when I saw you struck down against the wall, nearly helpless." He groaned, "Your fear was my fear. I thought you were going to die." His voice hushed with potent knowledge. He bit back a choked curse, then said, "I came to you as soon as I realized you were within the castle." His face flared with his own shame. "I didn't expect to see what I found." He paused. "Sarah, my precious one, I failed you, utterly and completely."

"No!" She struggled against him, pushing up against his frame so that she looked down upon him. "You never failed me."

His words were harsh. "I played a game. I played it well. Until it came to you, and I didn't want to pretend any longer." He ran a hand over his face. "Do you know what I am saying to you?"

No. She shook her head. His words were like bitter rambles, turned inward so that he castigated his very being.

He admitted, "I looked away," he growled with rage at his perceived ineptitude, "Away from that bastard-when I should have been alert. I didn't even strike a blow." He nodded sadly. "I wanted to let him take me down, to let him kill me with proper fitting," he groaned with misery. "I thought he had you beaten. I thought I lost you forever."

She shook her head in denial, grimacing at his words, at his truth in them. "No! No, you couldn't have," she said, laying against his chest, her fists small receptacles of pain as they stabbed at his heart. A pummeling of want. She caught the words and defamed that which proved vital to her soul. "You couldn't just die and leave me-"

He smiled, tender but aware. "There was nothing left of me at that point, just a warrior in a broken shell." He kissed her temple. "If I don't have you," he paused, honesty spearing them like a sword. "...I have nothing." His hand lingered on her hip, securing her to him. "Sarah, I would give you anything-"

"Your life, Jareth. You were willing to give your life-" She sat up, sudden outrage pouring out of her. "How dare you! You would have given up-on me, on us-just like that-" She glared at him, though he mocked a smile as if he were oddly pleased by her fuming. Her bitterness came from within, a self-flagellation. "If I hadn't been so heartless, you would have known without question how I love you. How I adore every breath in your body-"

He ran his finger over the smeared tears on her cheek. "I am to blame, just as much as you think you are, my heart." He kissed her with gentleness. "I would always give of my life so that you might live." Practical, full of veracity.

She sobbed at the thought that he had wanted to give in to death's enchantment—all because of her pitiless expressions, the gratuitous embers of flame that came between them in that moment's notice. "I cannot bear it. I have been so cruel. Please," she begged, "Forgive me."

He stroked her hair. "It is done, my love. We forgive the other for the stupidity that we seem to share," he said, soothing and repealing her fears. "That is that. We move on from here, yes?"

He meant more than moving forward in their relationship. He declared the anger gone and done. So, it was done. But, she knew he also meant that she had to let go of the doubt and shame wracking her. He knew, as a man of war, that her actions were necessary. For her, though, it didn't make death any easier to swallow.

"Yes," she said, answering and kissing him with all the warmth she could return to him before she pulled away, aghast at the treacherous passions that had come back with such swiftness. The surroundings mocked her, mocked them for the voluptuous escape of lips.

"What I have done-" She paused and looked around, purging on the bloodied cobblestone that made her heart still a beat, on the bodies of her compatriots slain on the floor. "Lord Drem-"

Jareth continued to soothe her. He said nothing, but his eyes darkened at the mention of the man's name. His hand slowed against her back, then resumed with careful circles of comfort.

Her tone was nothing but terrorized adrenaline that wafted back to her in sluggish recourse. Slow in coming, but reeking havoc until its complicit finish. She stated with bluntness, "I killed him. He's dead-"

Jareth struggled to look over her at Lord Drem, her body weighing him back, unwilling to let him go. He smiled, a vindictive malevolence. "So he is."

He scooped her to him, as if his life had not just been drained from his body. She cradled into him like a child, rocked in his arms as she cried and cried. He soothed and caressed. His coy nonchalance sat her upright again, the dichotomy of need and needed pummeling against her.

"I killed him," she repeated. She became very calm.

"I see that." Jareth pulled her deeper into his embrace. He refused to let the war-zone around them crush their reunion. "My warrior." Proudly acknowledging her sacrifice.

She shook her head. "They will come for me," she said, her tone absolute. "I am wanted for murder." She swallowed. "And I am. A murderer."

His voice stayed her, blunt. "A warrior on the hunt is not a murderer. They are a vindicator of justice." He sat up, pulling her up with him as he rose, his body shaky but sure. He lifted her chin with a gentle finger-press onto her skin, still murmuring reassurances.

"And never fear, my sweet. The Gar Nada surround the city." She stared, obtuse. He continued, pulling her into a hug as they stood. "We have won. No one will come after the queen of the Labyrinth and the Upper North."

She gave a smirk worthy of his own, trying to imitate his confidence, to exude when she wanted to shrink. "It seems I have attained kingdom and power to rival even you, my lord."

Her head lowered, still shy in the knowledge, giving the man before her the greater gift. Her praise, her declaration, her love. Never would she have expected a slave in marriage and life to ever win a place of victory and honor. She had, though. She had.

"You always had more power than I, my darling." He grinned, drawing her flush against him, a ready arousal from her presence and the aftermath of nearly dying. "Care to show me when we are home?"

He tucked his arm around her. Home. They couldn't be gone fast enough to suit her. Perhaps she would never return to the castle of the Upper North. Perhaps. If enough time passed, the horror gone, she might return to create new memories. Ones of lust and love and remembrance.

She nodded. Yes, yes, yes. She would show him, however long it took to show her penitence. To reveal her absolute, desirous, love for the man, her master. Her slave.

She hid her eyes within the cradle of his arms, his chest a wall of strength against her. She peeked, a sigh releasing. Her handmaid. Gone. Seven. Gone. Even the effusive man she had once danced with, a madman in the making. Gone.

Jareth led her into the hallway, drawing her away with his hand linked tight within her own. Yane stood, tears rolling down his cheeks, looking inward at the sorry sight. Sarah left Jareth and went to him, kissing the man lightly on his weathered cheek. Her sorry extended to them all, all of the victims of the battle-torn land.

"He was a warrior," she said, releasing the old man from his grief the only way she knew how, with words of condolence and applaud. "Brave and loyal. Worthy of his name."

Yane nodded, taking her palm and kissing it with reverence. He nodded to Jareth, giving approval of her that would never again have its end. He shifted his weapon closer to his body, an extension of his form, his words admiring. "You are truly a lady, Sarah of Atar."

Jareth held her as she returned back to his side, a part of him. A whole made of his and hers. His words admired. "She is more than that. She is a queen."

Yane nodded. He entered his nephew's graveside, solemn and resigned. Wars never came easy; a warrior knew to fight. They knew how to die. Seven's death had not been in vain.

Sarah knew that she and Jareth would return to the Labyrinth Kingdom, back into the forests of the Gar Nada, back to the lodge where their love grew. The past couldn't be erased, but it could be repaired and replaced for the better.

A king, ready to make change. A queen, ready to rule her new kingdom. A marriage, a union. A blessing.

For them, a fervor of want revealed more than just truth and passion. Joining again would be all the sweeter for their sacrifices. Bounteous desire, loyalty, and respect in shared compliance, would extend until they were no more.

They would love and love and love. Until the stars were faint embers in the sky, until the land ceased to exist. A near eternal. An eternal that wasn't long at all.

-finis-