All I ask of you, is that when I cannot, would you . . .
Love?
Sarah found Jareth lounging within one of the broad arches of the upper passage of the castle that overlooked the Labyrinth. The skies were streaked with pinks and greys as the sunlight was lost to the land. She felt her breath catch at the stark loneliness in his gaze as he absently twirled crystal orbs in one hand. She knew she would hate to be caught at such a vulnerable moment, so scuffed her shoes on the stone beneath her feet and smiled out at the skies as she approached. He set the crystals free to float on the wind as she neared his expression one of slightly sardonic, yet genuine pleasure.
"Sarah!" he breathed almost reverently, like a thirsty man seeing water in a desert. She stepped up to stand beside the arch he occupied.
She didn't blame him his reaction, she had avoided the Labyrinth for months. He'd been as busy, Spring and Summer with the stress of a the end of the school term and the indolence and inherent selfishness holidays brought, there were an increase of runners. Only, her issue had to be addressed.
"Goblin King," she spoke before her courage failed her, "you and I have to discuss the issue of a child."
He canted his head for a moment and then leaned to look behind her.
"What child?" He asked in honest bewilderment. "I deal in many children; most become goblins or lose their memories."
Sarah gave him a flat look and patted her stomach.
"This child!"
His face was a picture of astonished bewilderment.
"You would wish away a child not yet born?"
Sarah did a double take.
"Excuse me?" she spluttered out, offended.
There was a long awkward moment as they stared each other down; trying to puzzle out what the other was so confused over.
"Here!" Sarah growled and took out the pregnancy test from a few months back and handed it to him. He took it delicately in his fingers. She smirked. She wasn't about to tell him that she'd had to pee on it to get it to work.
"It's a stick with little lines on it?"
"Yes. It says I'm pregnant."
"Congratulations," he said with that bright brittle tone of his that always wanted to make her hold him until he was not quite so fragile.
"Congratulations?" Sarah protested and almost flung the ultrasound picture at him. "I'd say, congratulations," she concluded sarcastically.
"What is this?" He had it upside down. She righted it and pointed to the smudges that formed the shape of a healthy developing child.
"That is my little baby."
He dropped his feet off the ledge to the floor and sat peering at the picture with fascination.
"I had heard they could take images of young before they were born, but this is the first time I have ever seen it!" he said with wonder. He peered at her stomach with a frown. "You are not showing much, how many weeks?"
"Five months!" she said vehemently, yet he still didn't get it.
"You are one of those women who carry small," he concluded with understanding.
"I've a tipped uterus," Sarah said with less frustration, some of the people in the expectant mothers group she had joined had been quite mean about how little she had showed.
He sank back to sit against the wall of the arch again.
"Who is your lover, so I may send my congratulations?" there was a definite tone of bitterness in his voice then.
Sarah fisted her hands on her hips. He did not just say that.
"Jareth," she said warningly.
He twitched at her tone and eyed her warily.
"I will do neither you nor your loved ones any harm, you have my word, Sarah," he said reluctantly, as if stoically trying to hide the hurt he felt.
Sarah almost shoved him off the window seat right then she was so infuriated.
"Your Majesty, Jareth the bloody Goblin King, did you or did you not have a wild night of sex with me five months ago?"
He sat up straight and gaped up at her.
"I had a most spectacular dream–" he trailed off as his jaw dropped.
He tried to speak for several moments, but no sound came out of his mouth. She had never seen such a wholly shocked expression on anyone. If he, the Goblin King and master of dreams and nightmares, was bamboozled by the dream, then she had had no chance. Oh, she blamed the subtle magic of the Labyrinth for this, and that Valentine's party of Sidonie's. Why did magic make things magnitudes more complicated?
He eventually raised a trembling hand and placed it ever so delicately over her stomach.
"It's mine?" his voice shook.
"Who else in the Above or Underground, would I sleep with?" Sarah asked incredulously.
He blinked.
"No, honestly, are you sure it's mine?" he said with a tremulous tone of uncertainty in his voice.
She drew back and clenched her fists.
"If you think I have been sleeping around with other men you're mistaken! You do not get to smooth talk your way out of this!"
"Smooth talk?" he tried for waspish, but it came out oddly hurt. From the shock, emerged a strange expression of incredulous wonder. "Sarah, you gave me your love?"
She blushed at the way he said it, all tender and delicate as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
She nodded, not trusting her voice to give away as many emotions as he had.
"And the Labyrinth wove you into its very essence and brought you to me. I knew that dream was of strong portent, I simply never expected it to be real."
He slipped off the arched window to kneel in front of her and so gently settled his arms around her as if she were exceedingly fine crystal, his cheek resting against her stomach. She felt him trembling before she noticed the tears. Alarmed, yet somewhat exasperated at his reaction, she grasped his arms and crouched down beside him to pull him into a hug. He clung to her and simply sobbed into her shoulder. Sarah sighed and rubbed circles on his back. She was carding her fingers through his ragged hair by the time he finally calmed down. His breath still hitched at moments, but he held her and slowly strengthened his grip until it could be considered a hug.
"Thank you," he said thickly.
She hummed at that and with a final squeeze, he released her and sat back on his haunches. He looked an utter mess. His hair was clumped every which way and his makeup had run, revealing the beautiful pale skin beneath.
Then suddenly the moment passed and he stood abruptly to his feet, his eyes bright with delight.
"I will have rooms prepared for the child beside my own," he said firmly. "He or she will want for nothing."
Sarah frowned at him.
"You would take the child when it is born, just like that?"
"Of course!" he exclaimed with a broad smile. "It is my own flesh and blood! Heir to my kingdom," he finished in wonder.
"And what am I? Chopped liver?" Sarah snapped in fury.
"You may visit whenever you so desire," he reassured her fervently. "You are my child's mother. I shall never deny you."
"Oh you insufferable piece of work!" Sarah pushed herself up from the ground and stomped her way along the passage. "You do not get to take this child away from me, even for a second!"
"Sarah!" He scrambled after her.
He appeared directly before her so she almost slammed into him, trying to walk through the door.
"Sarah, I would never take this child from you, never."
She took a sharp step back out of his reach and tried to calm her ragged breathing.
"Only," he said softly, "I do not have an heir, and this child will be sure to inherit my magic. Aboveground, they will find it difficult. The magic is too thin there to support a growing child well."
"And what of me?" Sarah folded her hands protectively across her stomach.
"What would you have me do, precious thing?" he breathed, the desperation clear in his voice.
"Don't you want me?" Sarah sniffed, hating how her tears seemed to be on tap as soon as any emotion became too great.
She didn't expect him to sink to the ground in a crumpled bow at her feet.
"Jareth?" she yelped and crouched down worriedly as he slowly forced himself upright, his magic almost humming about him, and she suspected, the only reason he could move.
He raised his head and stared at her in white faced shock.
"You would want to be by my side?"
She flinched back.
"Yes, I, er, I thought we worked sort of well together." She remembered the easy joking and teasing, and then, with cold dread, what that woman Ceceille ha said. "Oh, I didn't realise you did not like mortals." She felt wretched at that.
"No!" He grabbed her lightly about the shoulders as if she were porcelain. She flinched at the sheer power curling around him and making her skin tingle. "We seem to have a very big misunderstanding here. We have been," he considered his words, "too careful. Too polite."
Sarah snorted. Polite? They had sarcastic slinging matches as their daily exchange.
"Sarah, precious thing, I would like nothing better than for you and our child to be in my life every day for all the days we have remaining to us. If you wish for marriage, I will send out the heralds and we will be wed within a week. If you wish for a home, I will provide you with the best suites in the castle. If you wish for a retreat, there is land within the enchanted forest. Tell me your desires so I may grant them."
Sarah reached up and smoothed out his hair so it stood in its usual fluffy ruff around his head.
"I would like to be your wife," she began and could get no further as all around them magic sparkled and they were floating among endless stars with a rim of eternal dawn on the horizon.
He grabbed her and hugged her to him. She clung as the disorientation of falling every which way got the best of her.
"Er, sorry," he sound rather embarrassed, but his whole demeanour shone with excitement, "my magic got the better of me."
"Where is this place?" Sarah asked, curiously. It was exactly like the floating she had felt when flying in the dream.
"It's the very heart of my power, and it is about this that the Labyrinth is constructed, it and its denizens draw power from here."
"You don't count yourself as a denizen?"
"No, I am its ruler, the magic is my own. Let me take us to a place where we may speak in greater comfort." He made a beckoning gesture with his hand and they were in a beautiful glade within the Enchanted forest. "I had planned, when you became more comfortable with the Labyrinth, that this area would be a small home for you. For weekends, to retreat when you were not busy in life Aboveground."
Sarah remained tucked in at his side and gaped at the scene in wonder. Old foundations and one wall of a cottage stood on the far side of the grassy glade, a stream cut across it in the dip nearer to them and the fading sunset painted everything in a hazy glow.
"It's beautiful," she whispered, "are you sure you want to disturb such a beautiful place?"
"You wouldn't want to live here?"
"Oh, no, but I would visit, often. If I'm to be your wife, I'd much prefer to at the castle and steal all the blankets off your side of the bed."
"You would not take the queen's suite?"
"There is a queen's suite? Sure, I'll take it, but I'm only making one bed in the morning, buster."
He wrapped himself around her and swung her around with a shout of incredulous delight.
"Let us sit on the wall there and talk," Sarah wriggled out of his grasp, only to have him dart about and grab her face and cover it with kisses. She slipped a finger over his lips. "We've much to discuss if there's a wedding to plan, our futures to work out and our respective jobs Aboveground and Underground to accommodate, not to mention how a child in four months is going to disrupt all that."
He released her with a blithely happy smile and tugged her by the hand all the way. He came to a sudden halt and froze as she sat on the wall.
"Oh dear," he reflected with a comical expression of dread on his face, "you convinced Karen and Robert that we're not romantically involved, and I told everyone you're my beloved not my betrothed, though with a baby on the way, we should by all formal tradition already be wed." He contemplated the treetops with an awkward expression that did not hide his glee.
Sarah began to laugh.
"You're the Goblin King, unpredictability is your nature!"
"And you're to be my Queen!" he threw out his arms and danced in the clearing, as he sang his joy to the skies.
