Her heart leapt into her throat, and that single second managed to fill itself with dozens of conflicting thoughts - was it really him, was it just wishful thinking, was it...?
She turned her head to look at the man who was making his way over to the front of the bench, and pushed her snow goggles to the top of her head so she could see better.
After the brief instant of blinding light as her eyes adjusted, she saw the figure she thought she'd never see again.
It was him. He had come after all. He was here.
She quickly stood and tried to run the few yards of distance between them. She had forgotten, however, that she already put her skis on.
Instead of falling romantically into his arms, she fell face first into the ground - but not before she had a chance to flail her arms around and make enough noise so as to create a scene. It was all very unromantic.
Jareth winced.
"Your first time on skis, I take it?" he knelt down to help her up. "Are you alright?"
She stumbled once or twice more as he pulled her up, but finally she was upright - albeit still clinging to her instructor for support.
"I'm ok." she breathed, squeezing her hands on his arms.
Her head was swimming, but not from the fall. She couldn't contain the grin spreading across her face as she looked up at those sparkling eyes.
"How do you - why-" she wasn't sure how to make her mouth give form to the questions spilling over in her thoughts. She bobbed up and down for a second, hoping the movement would take up some the energy being produced by her mind.
"Skiing since when?" she blurted out, not as eloquently as she could have, but it didn't matter anyway.
He raised an eyebrow. After he was sure she wasn't about to topple over again, he let go of her and tapped his wrist with a heavily gloved finger over the area a watch would go.
"Now, now. Time is money."
She rolled her eyes.
"I'm suddenly not as interested in learning to slide right now - I haven't seen you in ages!"
He glanced over at the building he had come from.
"I believe my boss would be less than thrilled to see me doing anything other than teaching while on the clock. There will be plenty of time for all manner of things later. But now, we ski."
She nodded, accepting this. The next hour was filled with reminders to bend her knees, frequent blinking to counteract the glare off the snow, numerous pauses to watch Jareth demonstrate, and the undeniable thrill she felt whenever he placed his hands on her.
Icy time marched on, until finally Jareth nodded and waved for her to come back to him one last time.
"You did well for your first time, Sarah."
She beamed.
"Now I'd like you to practice everything we just went over for about a half hour, at least."
Her face fell.
"But you said - I thought we were going to spend some time together after this?" she was dangerously close to pouting.
"Sarah," he tutted. "You aren't my only ski lesson, you know. I teach a group class in a few minutes. Look, they're already waiting."
She whipped off her goggles to get a better look at this assortment of people who were sapping up all of the precious time she could be spending with him. It was funny, she thought to herself, she couldn't remember anything in her silent wish about other people getting anything out of this deal.
She relented, nonetheless.
"But I'll see you after that?"
"Of course."
So she spent the next hour slowly practicing sliding with her knees in a squat that she was certain made her look stupid and stealing long glances at the group class. She may or may not have paused her practice a handful of times to observe whether or not she was doing any better than them. Upon deciding that while she was better than several of the other skiers, she also knew she'd need much more practice if she hoped to surpass the rest, who seemed to be picking it up quite quickly. She kept a tally in her mind of the amount of times each one fell and compared it to the number of her own falls.
There reached a point where she couldn't feel her toes any longer and each joint was stinging from her numerous stumbles and falls, so she decided to stop. The class seemed to be almost over as well. She sat back down on the bench with an "oof", taking off her gear with frozen fingers and watching as Jareth followed up with each student, giving final recommendations and words of encouragement.
Finally the last student trudged off, and Jareth turned his focus to her. Her heart felt like it would burst in her chest. All this time apart, and now- and now...
Now she had to wait just a little longer, as Jareth motioned that he needed to go back to the cabin first.
She nodded eagerly, but only stayed where she was for a few seconds longer, then grabbed all of her equipment and bounded as best she could towards the cabin herself. Sarah reached the cabin office and went inside. She received a few surprised looks from the other employees, and she realized awkwardly that maybe it was supposed to be employees only here. But she stayed as Jareth rushed through some paperwork, and no one bothered to tell her to leave.
His papers done, they both walked out into the snow once again. She could barely believe the reality of it all. It was too magical, too good. But it was happening.
"You'll come to my cabin for a bit, won't you?" he pulled out a cell phone from a pocket deep inside his coat.
"Of course!" she was eager to see where he was living.
"I'll dial us a cab, I made the mistake of carpooling with a coworker today."
Sarah was eager to catch up on what had happened in their absence from each other, but there were still too many people milling about for her to feel comfortable speaking about herself - or to ask any goblin related questions.
They had to settle for cheap small talk during the wait, each obviously full of questions bubbling just under the surface, none of them ready to be brought up just quiet yet. The cab arrived soon enough, Jareth giving the driver directions and Sarah strapping her skis to the top of the car before sliding into the backseat.
It was there, behind the tinted windows and basking in the stuffy heat coming out of the car's vents, that Sarah found herself moving before she could hold back. There wasn't a lot of room in the cab, and they were already so close together. She barely had to pull against her seatbelt at all, sitting sideways, and put her arms around Jareth.
Jareth seemed to anticipate this action and hugged her right back, falling into it so naturally. She didn't even realize how much she had missed that feeling of his arms around her holding her tight, how she had longed to feel him here in front of her and so real, until that very moment. It was as close to perfection as she thought was humanly possible to attain in this lifetime. She wanted this moment to never end.
The cab driver chuckled nervously, unsure of what was going on, and glanced up at the rear view mirror every so often, hoping dearly that things wouldn't progress to higher level of awkward in his backseat. He stepped on the gas a little harder.
