Hi guys,
This is the first fanfiction I have written in years! I gave up writing a long time ago and got the inspiration back to do it again. Labyrinth is my favourite film (Come on, David Bowie as Jareth! 3 ) and this came to me when I was watching it the other night. Please be gentle. It's my first fic in a long time! It's just a little warm up to get my creativeness going again.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This amazing world and these wonderful characters belong to the genius that is Jim Henson. I'm just borrowing them
I Can Save You
A storm was brewing. Rain began to fall persistently against the hospital window spurred on further by the howling wind behind it. Lightning split the once still sky, illuminating the figure of the young woman in the bed. Her chest rose and fell sporadically, her breathing coming in shallow rasps. Her once natural curves had all but abated. Every inch of bone stuck out in places where they should have not. Her collarbones, down to her ribs and her hips. Very little remained of what was.
Sarah Williams was a shadow of what and who she had once been.
Sarah was dying.
She had often thought about whether or not it was her time, how it had come to this. Fleeting between denial and acceptance. Sarah was much too young although her body betrayed her. She had never felt so old. So done. So tired.
The deterioration had come quickly. Courtesy of the viral infection that presented as a flu that left untreated had gone on to ravage the muscles of her heart. From this to the news that a transplant would buy her time but for how long no one could say. Cardiomyopathy had set in. Her heart was failing, and the rest of her body began to follow suit. There was no more that could be done. She was told it could take years for her heart to reach complete failure.
That had been a year ago
Sarah Williams was barely twenty-six.
For the most part she had managed to spend all of her time at home. She had given up her apartment in the city and returned to her family home to the care of her father and stepmother. Sarah had gone back to being the one who needed to be cared for.
Toby was almost twelve now and where he and Sarah had made and maintained their bond, he now shied away from her. He was watching his beloved sister waste away in front of his eyes, a mere fifteen years between them. Too much for a young boy to endure.
She spent most of her time in the garden with her books, too tired and too frail to go much further. On good days she could often walk down to the local park where she had played as a young girl, still living in her fantasy world at the age of sixteen. Until that night…
What had started as a good day proved to be the worst that Sarah would never be able to overcome. She had gotten caught in the storm much like the one raging outside the window tonight. By the time she had made it home soaked to the skin, her fragile heart hammering in her chest and gasping for her oxygen, the damage had been done. Pneumonia coupled itself with her damaged heart. She had been rushed to the ER two days later. She had never made it home. She would never go home again
All Sarah could do now was wait.
Thunder rumbled outside the window and for the first time in a few days, she opened her eyes. It hurt to breathe now, and she was grateful for the machine that drove whatever drug it was that was keeping her comfortable through her veins. Every so often a nurse would come and insert something else in a syringe into another vein and she could feel her breathing settle again and she would drift off.
And then the thoughts of him would come. He had haunted her periodically for the last ten years. Sarah might have defeated the goblin king, but she had never really escaped him.
And she had never really wanted to.
She had tried of course to forget him. At times she felt like the goblin city had been a dream and other days she would remember it as vividly as though she had been there yesterday.
Fear me, love me , do as I say and I will be your slave
He had wanted to give her everything. Moved the heavens and time for her. All she had to do was submit to him.
How she had wanted to love him. How she had feared him but love for her little brother had forced her on. Forced her to stand up to him. Forced her to let him go and deny him. To deny what her heart, body and soul truly wanted.
Before she knew what was happening, Sarah felt a tear slide down her cheek. She didn't fear dying. She feared not seeing his face in her dreams one more time. Pain seared across her chest and for once Sarah knew it was not her fragile heart that ailed her nor what she knew was coming. She gasped. It was almost time.
"Jareth," she whispered his name almost like a prayer.
"Sarah."
Her eyes sprang open. She had not imagined it. She had heard him as though he was right by her side. She moved her tired head as quickly as her broken body would allow. He had sounded so close she expected to see him standing beside the bed. Her soul was crushed when she saw there was no one there.
"I heard you," she breathed. Her voice was hoarse from lack of fluid. She was no longer eating or drinking, her body unable to tolerate it anymore. They were making her comfortable. Nothing else was needed.
Her father and stepmother had gone home to get rest, assured that she was settled for the night. Sarah was very much alone, and she began to fear it was the drugs being used to lull her into a peaceful death that were giving her false hope.
Thunder rumbled above her the room was bathed in light from the flash of lightning that followed. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the corner. She could have sworn. But nothing, or nobody, was to be seen.
"It wasn't real," She whispered blinking back tears as she fell back against the pillows, too weak to support herself.
"I'm here, Sarah."
"It wasn't you, you're not real," she closed her eyes, ready to fall back into sleep. To let go.
"Wake up Sarah."
"You're not real."
"You called to me."
"I'm scared Jareth."
"You know what to do Sarah. Say it."
Sarah thought for a moment that his voice was insistent, full of desperation. As though he was urging her to say what she had to say. He could do nothing until she said so.
"I'm so tired," her voice was barely audible now. She was slipping away and soon it would be too late.
"Ask."
"Hmm?"
"I can save you."
Sarah gasped as a fierce cold breeze blew across her skin. She shivered as though someone had just opened every window in the room and allowed the storm inside.
"Jareth, close the window," she sighed. She was aware of a cool, tingling sensation on her forehead and her eyes snapped open.
"Jareth!"
It was as if all the life and strength she could muster had flooded back into her. Jareth straightened, his lips pulling away from her forehead and there he stood, towering above her. He smiled at her but inside his heart was breaking. She was weak, the spark gone from the green eyes that had so often met his in defiance.
Your eyes can be so cruel, just as I can be so cruel
"It is you," she whispered, and he nodded "You came back."
"You called for me."
I'll always come back for you. I've waited for you to call for me again.
"Sarah, time is running out," she managed a small grin at this. He furrowed his brow and bit back a smirk of his own. Even in death she could irk him.
"Time…" she struggled; her voice barely audible "time fears you. Not the other way around," she coughed, her body creasing up in pain "Too… too late for me," she murmured.
No, dammit no, he thought to himself. He was not going to lose her. Whether she said it or not. He cupped her cheek. Sarah gave a sigh of relief at the warmth of his hand against her skin and she instinctively leaned into his touch.
"Sarah, do you remember where we first met," he asked. She gave a single nod.
"Goblin city."
"What happened?" He asked
"You… brought me to the goblin city."
That was good enough for him. Sarah suddenly felt light, and the room began to fade. She was happy now. She could let him go. She had seen him one last time.
There was a flash of blinding white light and then everything went black.
A one shot for now but who knows?
DP x