Sleep came easily that night, as unlikely as it seemed. True, it had taken her a long time to actually get into bed after Jareth's disappearance considering Edward's reluctance to leave. That much, she supposed, was to be expected, but all Sarah wanted was to eat her sandwich and go to bed. Any more conversations with magical beings about magical beings and she might really lose it. Edward was reluctant to even move from his defensive crouch in front of her, and Sarah was all but trying to shove him out of her way so she could get back to her sandwich on the counter, futile though her efforts were.
"I thought you said…." Edward began, after finally shifting so she could get by him, though not looking any less alert. Sarah already knew what he was going to say and answered before he could finish.
"I was wrong," she admitted, though sounding neither apologetic nor unnerved by the fact. Her tone was flat, perhaps because none of this was a surprise. No matter what she'd told Edward, Sarah always expected Jareth to appear at the least opportune times. Finally finishing her sandwich, Sarah took a bite, ignoring Edward's frustrated look. It wasn't like there was anything she could do, was there? Edward was painfully easy to frustrate and Jareth was singularly frustrating, the two of them would never mix well, with or without Sarah. She could already tell it would be impossible to bring any kind of peace to their relationship… and, oddly enough, Sarah didn't even want to try.
"He's not going to come back," Sarah finally added when Edward made no moves to leave. "He said what he wanted to say already, so we probably won't see him again for a… well, not right now anyway." She could make no promises that Jareth would be gone for too long, Sarah realized quickly. In the past he had visited her every morning without fail, so she supposed that it wouldn't be a leap to assume he'd be back tomorrow. Her words did not comfort Edward.
"You can't know that for certain," he argued, unaware of the defensive indignation that welled in Sarah. Sure, Jareth often surprised her, but she had a strange amount of pride in having figured him out as much as she had. Besides, whatever else he might have been, Jareth was probably considerate enough to let her sleep.
"Edward just… trust me? Please?" Despite her words, Edward still looked skeptical. After all, she had made this same promise before and yet Jareth had come all the same. She knew her words sounded wholly unreliable now. "I'm not going to tell you that he won't come back—he definitely will—but it won't be tonight. This is how he is. He comes, says what he wants to say, and then disappears until he has something else to say." She paused. "He's really not a fan of letting other people have the last word." The familiarity with which she spoke of the Goblin King was only making things worse, but she couldn't stop herself.
"You've said yourself that he's unpredictable," Edward continued, not giving in.
"He is, but I know how to deal with him. I've dealt with him for two years. You didn't even know he existed until today," Sarah argued back, shaking her head. Maybe it was wrong of her to assume that she was more capable of dealing with Jareth based on experience alone, but she couldn't stand being told what she was or was not capable of. Or perhaps it was the suggestion that maybe she wasn't special; maybe she was just an ordinary girl who just so happened to stumble her way through an extraordinary situation.
"I would have," Edward said. "If you'd told me." There was something heavy to the words, Sarah blinking at him in silence. Of course she knew that it had been wrong of her to keep him in the dark, but she'd thought there would be more time. If she'd had more time…. Even in her mind Sarah couldn't finish the thought, knowing it was a lie. If Jareth hadn't shown up, she would have taken her secrets to the grave.
"Edward, think about it. Goblins, other worlds, talking worms…. You would have thought I was insane." Of that, Sarah had no doubt. She tried to talk to her father and Karen about it once, but the way they'd looked at her…. Sarah never wanted anyone else to look at her that way again. If it hadn't been for Jareth coming to visit her like he had, she might have believed she'd imagined the whole thing herself. Edward looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't. She didn't blame Edward for not immediately disagreeing the same way she didn't think she blamed her father or step-mother for their reactions.
"I'll really be fine," Sarah assured Edward once more, shaking her head as she gestured vaguely to the door. "I promise." Even so, he didn't move, looking at her with a hard to read expression. Sarah didn't want to know anyway.
"Why do you trust him so much?" Of all the questions Edward could have asked, that one just left Sarah chuckling. Trust Jareth? Sure, her relationship with the Goblin King was complicated, but she definitely wasn't foolish enough to trust him.
"I don't trust him," she told Edward when she realized her laughter could be taken more offensively than she'd meant it. The gaze she was met with in return caused her amusement to fade quickly. He was looking at her like she was in denial.
"But you're defending him." Yet again Sarah wasn't sure where that had come from. Maybe she wasn't as quick to demonize Jareth as Edward was ready to, but that was because she knew the Goblin King better than he did.
"I'm not defending him! I know he's dangerous, but I really think you've got him all wron—."
"You had to run away from him," Edward growled in return. The tone and volume of his voice shocked Sarah, any rebuttal she could have made dying on her tongue. Even if Edward wasn't technically wrong, something about the words still seemed inaccurate. When it came to Jareth, Sarah felt afraid of a lot of things, but—after beating the Labyrinth—harm had never been one of them. So, with those thoughts in her head, Sarah held Edward's challenging gaze. It was only when she heard a sound upstairs that Sarah shot a glance to the stairs, praying desperately Charlie wouldn't come down. She needed to get Edward to leave.
"That… this and that are two completely different things," Sarah finally said, earning another look of skepticism from Edward. "And I don't have time to explain it right now," she added quickly. She had neither the time nor the energy. Sarah doubted she could find the words, even if she did. Edward's jaw clenched.
"You really have nothing to do with him?" As serious as the question was, to Sarah it felt like a cool blast of relief. She was bobbing her head immediately, nodding with desperation. If this was what Edward needed to hear, she was more than happy to tell him.
"There's really nothing."
"And, what he said earlier?" Sarah's confusion must have been obvious on her face. Edward frowned. "Your… position."
"Oh," she said with a laugh, "that." Sarah shook her head easily, rolling her eyes. "He really was just trying to make you angry. You and me. He gets a kick out of messing with people's heads, you can't let him get inside yours." She paused. "The main thing to remember with him is that nothing is ever what it seems."
"But…." Edward's jaw clenched again and he looked away from her, a deep furrow in his brow. Sarah had expected more relief from him, but his body remained just as tense as it had ever been. She knew enough about his stubborn and protective personality to know this had to be hard for him. She took a step towards him.
"Edward, look at me," she instructed, though not reaching out to touch him. She still wasn't sure just how in control of himself he was tonight. "I promise he won't hurt me. I don't think he can." Even if the words felt dull and bland now, there had been power and a kind of magic to them before. Whatever power Jareth might have over her now, she could beat it. Edward still wouldn't look at her. "Or… is there something else?"
"I hate this," he said, still avoiding meeting her eye. "The way he talks about you like you're one and the same. Like there's a whole world between you that I can't break into." With a gentle smile, Sarah laid a hand on his arm, hoping to offer what comfort she could.
"Don't take it to heart," she said. "Whatever connection we had two years ago, it's been over ever since I beat him. There really is nothing else there." Finally Edward turned back to face her, amber eyes probing. Whatever he saw in her expression finally caused him to relax his posture, though his gaze remained intense.
"Then you don't know?"
"Know w-what?" A tingling sensation started in her fingertips and the palms of her hands, radiating a kind of gnawing anticipation. Nothing seemed more dangerous when it came to Jareth than something she didn't know.
"He smells…." Edward's gaze faltered and he looked away as he composed himself. When his gaze returned to hers, it was penetrating. "He smells just like you."
Sarah froze. "What?" She pulled her hand back from him as though she'd been burned.
"The way you smell… it's overpowering," Edward told her. "All the control I've been working on all these years, the moment you sat next to me in biology that day I thought it was over. That sweet, intoxicating smell; I thought it would be the end of everything." Sarah swallowed, remembering back to his dark-eyed glare that had first annoyed and then frightened her. Understanding his actions was not the relief she'd once expected it to be. She shook her head.
"A coincidence," Sarah said, breathless.
"We've never met another human who smells like you. Not once. Not any of us." Sarah bit her lip. She stumbled back a couple of steps as she tried to take that new information in. Her hands gripped at the counter desperately to hold herself.
"I'm human," she said, assuring both Edward and herself. "Beyond that I… I don't know." His eyes were still unyielding and she shook her head again. "Really. I really don't know." The longer and more intensely Edward looked at her, the harder her heart pounded in her chest, but Sarah had nothing else to offer. She didn't like this new information any better than Edward did. Another noise from above had them both shooting their gazes to the stairs with more urgency.
"Can we talk tomorrow?" asked Edward quietly. With her scrambled mindset, Sarah would have agreed to anything he asked. She nodded without really listening.
"Sure, sure," she whispered back hurriedly as the stairs groaned under slow and heavy footsteps. By the time she glanced back, Edward was gone.
"Bella?" called Charlie. "Everything alright?" Sarah let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
"It's fine, Dad," she called back, her voice cracking a little in the middle. "I'm just making a midnight snack." She received a quick grunt in response and a few seconds later she heard the stairs creak again as Charlie returned back up to bed. Sarah collapsed to the floor, still holding onto the counter. It was a while before she trusted her shaky legs again, able to finally nibble through her sandwich, though she wasn't feeling so hungry anymore. By the time Sarah fell into bed it was well past midnight, but—once she did—Sarah fell into the most peaceful sleep she'd had in what felt like a long, long time.
Morning came abruptly. Peacefully dozing, Sarah had completely missed the sounds of Charlie leaving, the birds cheerfully chattering away in the morning sun and the scattered noise of traffic that occasionally could be heard outside the house. Normally any one of those things would have woken her up for at least a moment, but Sarah's mind was exhausted enough to allow her to sleep through almost anything. In fact, when she finally jolted awake suddenly, her mind was too foggy to register what had woken her up. Bleary-eyed, Sarah glanced around the room for a moment as she waited for some sign that something was amiss, but quickly her head fell back to the pillow. She was nearly asleep again when the sound returned: the doorbell. It didn't take her more than ten seconds to decide it wasn't worth answering.
Of course, her decision was quickly overruled as her phone began to buzz on her nightstand and she heard the doorbell again. Sleep, it seemed, was not in her immediate future. As she leaned out of bed for her phone, something rolled from the blankets and bounced to the floor with a few light clinks. In the end, that was what really woke Sarah. She watched the crystal as it rolled across her floor; just one more thing she didn't want to deal with. She left it alone. Dragging herself out of bed and down the stairs—tripping a few times—took enough energy already. By the time she pulled open the door, Sarah wasn't surprised to see Edward standing on the other side looking fresh-faced and neat as ever. It definitely was a stark contrast to Sarah's baggy pajamas and wild hair, but in that moment she couldn't bring herself to care.
"Don't you ever sleep?" she asked him by way of a greeting, one hand holding the door for support as she squinted in the all too bright day. Though she hadn't looked at the time, Sarah had to guess that it was nearing noon, if not past.
"No," Edward responded, a bit of amusement in his tone. Sarah was left squinting at him, not sure if he was being facetious or if that was a vampire thing. She decided not to ask.
"Well, I do. I was," she informed him, though it was obvious at a glance. Edward wasn't put off in the slightest. Still blocking the doorway to keep him from coming in, Sarah looked at him pointedly.
"You said we could talk," he reminded her. Sarah was doing her best to suppress as many of her memories of yesterday as possible, but his words sounded vaguely familiar. They did need to talk, she knew. If they went on like this without any explanation between them, it would end badly. Of that she was certain.
"Right." Eventually she sighed and stepped back from the door so that he could come inside, gesturing him to the table. Edward hesitated.
"Would you like to go back to my house?" Sarah quirked an eyebrow at the question. Was that his way of being considerate? She was sure the confrontation from last night hadn't been easy on either of them and maybe having the buffer of his family might not be a bad thing. Alice, at least, had been trying to calm things down.
"I never had the chance to give you a tour and you still haven't met Esme," Edward added, though Sarah figured that was an excuse more than anything. Still, he said the words with a winning smile, the one that always made Sarah remember just how Edward had become as popular as he was. Even if she didn't fall over herself for him the way so many girls in their school did, she wasn't completely immune either. Her grudging soft spot for him was still there. No matter what, she didn't want to lose her friendship with Edward. What had frightened her most before coming to Forks was the concept of having no one and not being able to make relationships with anyone beyond sparkling Goblin Kings. At least having Edward gave her peace of mind.
"Give me twenty minutes?"
It was closer to thirty or even forty by the time Sarah was ready. Though she wanted to hurry, she still felt like she was dragging her feet in everything she did. Returning to her room, the crystal caught her eye again. She reached for it gingerly, holding it like a particularly angry snake. She didn't know what it was. She didn't know what it would do. … but she didn't want to throw it away. In the end, Sarah shoved the crystal deep into the back of one of her drawers, hoping it would stay both out of sight and out of mind. Realizing she was dawdling, Sarah rushed to the stairs. She could see Edward at the table and she felt herself wanting to hurry.
It was at the lip of the stairs that Sarah tripped again, a foot slipping out from under her as the other bashed helplessly against the edge of the stair. Her hands tried to grab for the handrail, but ended up tangled uselessly in her jacket. With her muddled head, she'd managed to twist herself up in such a way that no amount of frantic tugging could pull her loose. Even trying to push her hands out in front of her to break her fall was a battle against the jacket, one that she was losing. Sarah screwed her eyes shut, preparing to land face-first onto the stairs.
The impact hurt, but not nearly as much as Sarah had been anticipating. Her nose felt a little sore but other than that she was fine. Carefully she cracked an eye open only to find she was looking directly at the collar of Edward's shirt. Her gaze drifted up, catching Edward's look of concern. Immediately Sarah flushed, looking away again. She said nothing when Edward put her down—safely at the bottom of the stairs—and untangled her jacket from around her.
"I can't take my eyes off you for a second," he said, laughter in his tone. Sarah tried to give a few chuckles of her own, but they sounded hollow even to her own ears. She didn't look at Edward again until she felt something warm being pushed into her hands: coffee.
"I looked that bad, huh?" she asked, trying to brush it all off with some nervous laughter. Edward said nothing. She must have looked even worse than she thought. The liquid in the cup bounced and sloshed around, making Sarah realize she was shaking. She bit her lip, setting the cup down on the table.
"Am I asking too much?" Edward's voice was quiet. He was trying to be as gentle with her as he possibly could, Sarah knew that. Even last night in all his agitation, he was trying his best not to frighten her. Sarah reached for the cup and took a long swig, not caring that it burn her tongue.
"No," she said. Her eyes flickered to the stairs again carefully before she turned a smile toward Edward. "I'm just tired. But… I think you're right. Let's talk at your place. It wouldn't be good if… Charlie comes back." Sarah shrugged her jacket back on with more care this time, noticing that Edward was still watching her. She downed the rest of her coffee quickly before following Edward outside to the car.
"Thanks," Sarah tacked on as Edward pulled the door open for her. He looked much more relaxed now and Sarah thought she was doing a good job hiding just how terrified she actually was.
She'd been tripping a lot lately, that was nothing new, but they'd never done much damage other than scuffed knees and a bruised ego; they certainly never risked her life. It also wouldn't be the first time that she'd encountered danger since moving to Forks, but Sarah couldn't shake the feeling that something about this had been different. This time she didn't think it was an accident.
Sarah crossed her legs as Edward drove, casually fiddling with the cuff of her jeans. Her breath caught in her throat as her fingers found a small tear at the bottom: the tear where something had grabbed her.