Sarah and Alex stayed well past midnight at the bar. When it was finally time to leave, they exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. Sarah went to sleep that night with a smile on her face, unbelieving at her own good fortune of meeting someone who seemed to have the potential of becoming a great friend - and something more.
She hadn't had a friend in a while. She kept in touch with a handful of people from college and her former workplace, true, but it had seemed that the more she got into the world of writing and traveling, the more others pulled away. Or was she simply busier? Had she been the one to pull away? Either way it fell, the fact of the matter was her world was becoming vastly different from the world the rest of her friends inhabited. Whether that meant that she found it harder to relate or the others were just busy with their daily grind - the end product was the same.
They spent the last two days of the con together when they had spare time. And when it was over and they each had to go their separate ways, they took to texting and following each other on various social media. When time allowed - or in some cases, when time was viciously bent to their will so as to allow - there were phone calls and long emails.
Sarah's tour continued on across the states. Bookstores and conventions littered across America, all with a little extra time to be spent how she saw fit. Sandy piers and wooden boardwalks illuminated against the dusky summer sky, tea in pastel cafes filled with wrought iron decor and sweet pastries, neon signs glowing above planted cacti in the desert, leaves changing the color of both themselves and everything they fell on viewed from warm eateries serving lobster and chowder, pine trees lining hiking trails like silent guardians. Snow covering unfamiliar landscapes and turning them into fairy lands. And through all this change there was one constant. Alex.
Always Alex, with an email on the weekend filling her in on details of what was happening on set, or a random smiley face text that never failed to make her smile, or how he was always willing to take five and listen to her if she was feeling lonely or having a bad day. There were even a handful of events they happened to both be appearing at. While she loved every tour and event she went to, the ones with Alex were the very best of all.
With someone in almost instant contact at her fingertips, she found herself wishing less and texting more. And although Jareth was increasingly absent from her thoughts, he wasn't altogether gone.
There wasn't anything specific she really needed to wish for, besides someone to talk to. Was it appropriate to summon a possibly immortal being from another dimension for small talk? And it would feel so silly to ask him to come to an event, like she was bragging or showing off. Besides... Shouldn't he want to come to one all on his own? He'd never even bothered to show up at any of them, never seemed to care enough to try any sort of contact with her. She wondered, sometimes, if she shouldn't just ask him - but she never, ever wished. She didn't want to force him, or make him feel obligated. So she never wished, not for anything.
The end of the year was closing in, and with it would come the end of her tour. She was discussing this on the phone one mid December night with Alex when the idea was - for lack of a better word - proposed.
"I can't believe it's almost over. I mean, it's been amazing but I'm kinda looking forward to taking a break from it all, you know?" she lay on her back on the hotel bed, staring at the oddly textured ceiling.
"What are your news years plans? I know Christmas Eve you have a con, but that's the last one, right?"
"Yeah. I really don't know. I guess I didn't think that far ahead. I probably should have planned where I'm gonna go after this." she groaned.
"You should move in with me."
Sarah was silent, trying to process the words she had just heard.
"What?"
"Come on, it'll be great. Move in with me. There's plenty of room here. New year, new start, new home, new boyfriend..."
Somewhere along the lines their friendship had crossed into something a little more romantic, and although they both knew they each liked the other as just a little more than strictly friends - there wasn't much talk of seriousness for the relationship simply stemming from the fact of how often they both traveled. But this... This would be a big step.
The only thing she could liken this feeling to was ages ago when she was at a state fair and had been somehow convinced to try the roller coaster. She had sat back in her coaster car, climbing up and up and up and knowing the drop was mere seconds away. The squirming excitement of knowing something drastic was about to happen was the very same.
"Do you mean it?"
"Of course! So... Is that a yes?" he teased in a singsong voice.
"That's an 'I'll think about it'!" she laughed.
And she did think about it, and they continued to discuss it over the next week.
And two days before New Year's Eve, Sarah moved in with Alex.
