A Rare Breed
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By: The Dragon's daughter
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*Disclaimer* this is getting pretty old.
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AU-
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Chapter Three
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Lightning illuminated the yard as Sarah darted across the lawn loaded down with bags and baby.
"Oh, now this is really unfair!" she muttered to herself as fat raindrops began to shatter against her cheeks. "It's just downright uncalled for!"
Without so much as a speck of flash or glitter Jareth appeared by her, easily matching his pace to hers. "I'm beginning to think you just say that so you won't have to swear."
"Someone give the man a cigar." She grumbled and ducked into the empty garage. She looked around for Merlin for a moment until she remembered that he was at the vet getting his doggy Aids shots.
"Hey!" she cried as her bags vanished. "Jareth, I don't have time for this!"
He sniffed disparagingly. "They are merely stowed in your father's van. I am well aware of your situation and I came to warn you, it's going to get worse. Your father is threatening your step-mother with divorce if she doesn't accept you." he paused and cocked his head as if listening. "... And your father is about to be single once more. Karen is running up the stairs... and angry. I think she's going to smash up some of your things."
Just as she'd expected... Sarah scowled as she slipped her set of keys into the lock on the door. "How do you know?"
He gestured expansively. "How do I know anything? I do know however that you've left your copy of The Labyrinth inside the house and that Karen has just found It." at Sarah's shocked expression he chuckled grimly. "It gets worse, she's opened it and is reading the book to see what sort of 'sentimental chatter' you waste your time with..." he blanched. "No!"
Sarah looked away from the door. "What."
Jareth looked genuinely pale but he shook himself and his normal calm swept up to surround him again. "What a spiteful creature she is." He thought out loud.
Sarah's arms closed reflexively around Toby. "What has she done?"
Jareth shook his head. "I must go... there may still be some hope." and he vanished just in time for Robert to storm into the garage. Toby's pale yellow bag dangled from his hands.
Sarah was positive that her face showed signs of what had just happened but Robert went past her without saying a word and unlocked the car himself. "You've probably already figured out what happened." He said brusquely.
"You're leaving Karen?"
He said nothing. "We'll stay the night at a Motel 6 (c) and I'll see a lawyer in the morning. I'll let Karen have the house and the furniture except for your things and what your mother left you. Hopefully I'll get custody of Toby."
Sarah chuckled mirthlessly. "She made you choose between me and her, it won't be hard for the judge to decide."
Robert snorted. "There is that." He tossed his bag into the back of the Van and let Sarah get Toby fastened into his car seat. "I'm sorry about this, Princess..." he started.
"It's not your fault, daddy." Sarah said absently, most of her attention was focused on just what exactly Karen had just done. Jareth was not the type that spooked easily.
Robert winced and buckled Sarah's seat belt for her when she took her place in the front seat. "Dad!" she cried.
Robert chuckled grimly. "I haven't been much of a father have I? I practically ignored you after your mother left and--."
"... And married the Ice Bitch, yes I noticed." Sarah replied incisively. "Does the term 'I told you so' ring a bell?"
Robert flinched again. "I deserved that."
"Yeah, you did. Let's go, now we can put it behind us." Sarah suggested not ungently.
Robert nodded and pulled the car out of the garage.
***
Jareth did not heed Karen William's summons right away. Instead he stayed just beyond the physical realm and watched the vicious woman as he tried to pull his composure together again.
He had truly been expecting her to make a wish tonight, a wish of some sort. He'd been waiting for anything that would give him an excuse to whisk Sarah away to the Underground where she didn't have any excuses to put him off with.
He hadn't been expecting this though. Karen's wish put a damper on his plans.
Jareth was very rarely surprised, in fact the last time it had happened was when Sarah had refused him and his world last year and chose to return to this... this... wretched excuse for a society.
Intellectually he could understand that now, he'd just seriously underestimated Sarah's character. The whole fiasco had been his fault in a way; he'd been expecting her to dissolve into tears halfway through the Labyrinth just convinced that she could not solve it. That was he would have waltzed in and fixed everything, on the condition that she stayed with him happily ever after, of course.
Of course the fact that she had proved him embarrassingly wrong was actually rather endearing in a way, it had been a long time since he'd taken up with a woman who didn't really need him.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Jareth was hard pressed to remember his last healthy relationship... it had to have been when he married Anestria!
Well... that was a slap in the face...
A muffled crash caught Jareth attention and he saw that Karen had gotten into Sarah's room and was smashing the glass in all the framed pictures of Linda, Sarah's mother.
It was time to interrupt this little temper tantrum.
He materialized behind Karen just as the woman lifted a small blown glass swan that's he'd slipped Sarah for Christmas last year (back before she'd known him). He caught Karen's wrist in a vise like grip and removed the swan from her hand before releasing her.
"If you would please act your age, madam?" he said chilly.
Karen spun to face him. "Who are you and what are you doing in my house!?" she hissed.
Jareth bowed stiffly. "I am the Goblin King, and you have just summoned me to grant a wish."
Karen stiffened. "You're going to grant me a wish? Any wish?" she asked skeptically.
"Not 'any' wish." Jareth corrected. "You've already made your wish and I am merely here to tell you that I am granting it."
"What kind of game are you running? Get out of here!" the woman shouted at him.
Jareth bowed again. "With pleasure!" he growled. "Might I add, Madam, that is my greatest pleasure to remove young Sarah from the possibility that you might win custody of her in the divorce."
He vanished before Karen's shocked eyes before he lost his temper, and when Karen turned back to Sarah's room she found it devoid of anything Sarah valued… even the things she'd already broken.
***
Robert pulled the van over into the illuminated parking lot of a Gas-n-Go. He leapt out the side and hooked up the gas pump into the van. Sarah gingerly disembarked from the van with Toby's limp body slung against her shoulder, drooling fondly down her neck.
"You go get something to eat and formula for Toby if there is any." Robert told Sarah and handed her a credit card from his wallet. "If there's anything you didn't have a chance to grab in the house, see if you can get it here. Kay, Princess?"
Sarah nodded. "Okay, Daddy." she smiled tentatively and Robert smiled back, albeit tiredly.
"This marks a new life for us, Sarah." he said. "My company has been talking of transferring me to New England. I guess I'll take them up on it now, I was going to refuse because Karen didn't want to leave this New York."
Sarah shivered as she felt Jareth's presence wash over her. She pulled the folded Churchill weaver blanket out of the van and tossed it over Toby to keep off the chill. "See you in a bit, Daddy!"
She turned on her heel and skipped into the mini-market just in time to see Jareth emerge from the men's room in a trucker outfit. She hid a smirk behind her hand; he really couldn't pull it off no matter how far he went into character.
His hair was limp for once and bound back in a ponytail, he sported a shadow beard, his make-up was gone, and he was dressed in a grimy coverall and worn hiking boots. He tipped his red sox baseball cap at her when he laid eyes on her and Toby.
"I wouldn't worry about supplies, Sarah," he told her in an undertone as he pretended to look over the snack aisle beside her. "You won't be needing them. At least, not where you're going."
Sarah blinked. "Excuse me?"
He looked sad as he laid a hand on her shoulder. "Please recall that I don't have a choice about this. However, I will be able to help you once you get there." his hand drifted up to her cheek. "You won't be able to go home ever again, nor will Toby. Your stepmother wished for both of you to go away and never return. I hope you'll forgive me for this… I know you didn't want to go back, but now you have no choice."
She surprised him with a resigned sigh. "I understand." Her hand went to pat Toby's back. "What about Dad? How will I take care of Toby?"
"I'll help you as much as the Code will allow," he promised. "Hoggle and Didymus will aid you as well. When you arrive in the Labyrinth, concentrate on finding the Oubliette. Have the Helping Hands take you down gently. The portable door is still down there so you won't be trapped. I'll have your luggage down there."
"And Dad?" she pressed.
Here Jareth grinned nastily. "I'll leave an illusion of you getting into the car and then someone coming and stealing the van with you in it. Your father deserves to sweat about you a little."
"… Not for the rest of his life!" Sarah protested.
"I'll take care of it, darling." Jareth dropped a quick kiss on her mouth and magicked her away while she was still sputtering in indignation.
He sighed and erased the cashier clerk's memory of the past two minutes before going outside to stage a kidnapping.
There were times when he seriously disliked his job; especially when it came to angering his future father-in-law.
***
Sarah landed squarely on her feet. Small clouds of reddish dirt rose around her sneakered feet. She straightened up and looked around, Toby gurgled to life and raised his head up off her shoulder to look around.
"Gaaaa!" he announced with a gap-toothed grin and then, having delivered his proclamation, laid back down and abandoned the conscious world.
Sarah sighed and started to descend down the side of the knoll where she'd appeared. It was the same one she'd appeared on last time she'd been here. The Labyrinth stretched out before her and sprawled out across the horizon. She eyed the dark and heavy clouds overhead dubiously. She needed to get under cover fast.
Hopefully Hoggle would be out assassinating fairies again today, he spent most days doing that. He'd know how to get to the Oubliette.
As she nearly the outer reaches of the Labyrinth, near the gate if she remembered correctly, she saw a short figure bearing a spray gun hunched over one of spindly bushes outside the Labyrinth walls.
"Hoggle!" she called and he jerked up.
"Whozzat?!" he yelled and then broke out in a grin as he spotted Sarah. "Missy!" He pulled his cap off his balding head and waved it energetically.
She fell down on her knees when she reached him, careful of Toby, and gave Hoggle a firm hug. "It's good to see you again!"
"What are ye doin' here, missy?" he asked incredulously. "I wasn't expectin' at see ye until Solstice 'tide."
Sarah pursed her lips. "I'm here for good," she said shortly. She didn't dwell on the fact that she was exiled to the Labyrinth overmuch; she suspected if she did she'd go into shock and that was a luxury she didn't have at the moment.
"Bu'… what? I don't understand…" Hoggle stopped himself and got a good look at the war for control going on in Sarah's eyes. He nodded abruptly and cast a leery eye at the sky. "We need to get that one under cover," he said brusquely with an oblique gesture at Toby.
Sarah nodded gratefully, Hoggle knew her better than anyone else. He knew when sympathy would just hurt her. "Jareth told me to go to the Oubliette."
Hoggle blinked and then nodded. "Smart that, the Oubliette's a good spot of shelter once ye know how ta get out again. Are ye really here fer good, missy?" he asked as they came to the great doors.
Sarah nodded. "Toby and I are."
He grunted to himself. "That's gonna be an interesting story, that." He waved the gates open. "Now, getting' to anyplace in the Labyrinth ain't all that hard. Ye just concentrate on it and keep walking; eventually ye'll get there. I'll be with ye so there's no worrying."
Sarah smiled at him. "Thanks Hoggle, you're a good friend."
"Nah, ain't no one countin'. We is neighbors now, I got my den near the Oubliette an' ye kin get to the Bog right easy from there too." He shrugged. "Ye might consider making the Oubliette home, it's the best place I kin think of for ye. That's prolly why Jareth told ye ta go there."
The outer corridor trap was kid's stuff to get through, and the sandstone maze unfolded quickly to let them up against Alf and Ralf, the card dogs.
"You again! Didn't ya learn yer lesson the first time!" Alf barked at her.
"Maybe she's still lost?" Ralf suggested, eliciting howls of laughter from his counterparts.
"Look you…" Hoggle started but Sarah held him back.
"I'm the one who was wished away this time, guys," she admitted.
Everyone present, except Toby, gawked at her.
"So if you could let me into the passage that leads to the Oubliette, I'd be grateful." she finished.
"Wished ya away?" Alf sputtered. "Who'd… ah, it's that witch of a stepmother of yours. What'cha think ye were doing, letting her see that book?"
Sarah blinked. "You know about my stepmother?"
"Indeed we do, ain't many around who don't know all about you." Ralf pointed out. "You solved the Labyrinth, you is famous!"
She blushed. "Oh… I see. Um, could you let me through?"
The card dogs conferred and Alf moved away from the door. When Sarah hesitated, Hoggle was quick to reassure her.
"That whole 'one only tell the truth and the other only lies' bit it for the challengers, Missy." he said. "Alf an' Ralf is right helpful for residents."
She relaxed. "All right. Thank you both." she said to them and the dogs muttered something gracious.
Sarah quickly fashioned a sling from Toby's blanket and cradled him against her chest in it, then she walked up to the edge of the door and tapped the ground with her toe. It obediently fell away and she could see the dark blue hands lining the walls of the tunnel.
"Excuse me!" she called down.
Some of the hands formed a sketchy face near the mouth of the tunnel. "Yes?" it replied. "Do you need something?"
"Yes, I need to get down to the Oubliette and I have a baby with me. Could you take us down… gently?"
"Of course! We live to help!" the face said cheerily. "Put your legs down and let us get a hold on you. Will anyone else be going with you?"
"Yes, my friend Hoggle." Sarah told it.
"Then we'll take him down after you."
Sarah sat down on the edge of the tunnel and dangled her legs down into the tunnel, she felt the Helping Hands take firm yet gentle grips on her legs and she scooted down into the hole.
The Hands quickly lowered her down the tunnel in an efficient manner, even if they did occasionally grip her in awkward places. When they reached the bottom, another face formed and offered to hold Toby while she dropped down to the bottom.
"Yes, thank you." she undid the wrap and let the hands take Toby.
They let her down and she landed somewhat unsteadily on her feet. "Okay!" she held up her hands to receive Toby and within a few moments he was back in his sling.
Candles had already been lit in the Oubliette, no doubt courtesy of Jareth, and the place had been cleaned from top to bottom. The walls still sparkled with veins of quartz, but the creeping cobwebs were banished from the place. Her luggage and a few other items from her room were grouped together in one corner of the room. Sarah was glad to see the wicker basket that had served Toby as a playpen/crib when he was in her room.
Carefully, she laid the comatose baby in the basket and then retrieved Lancelot to tuck in beside him.
Hoggle arrived then as she covered Toby with his blanket. He dangled over the edge of the hole for a little while and then fell to earth with a grunt before Sarah could catch him. He was up and dusting himself off, looking none the worse for wear when she reached him.
"Are you all right, Hoggle?" she asked.
"I'm a dwarf!" he said proudly. "It'll take a bit more than that ta hurt me!"
"Good!" She sighed.
Another face assembled itself and peered down the tunnel at them. "Excuse us, miss? Will you need anything else? It's starting to rain up topside and we'd like to get back in the wall."
"No, thank you!" Sarah cried back. "Go ahead!"
"Do you want us to close the dome here as well? Sometimes water gets through the trapdoor. It won't cut off the air, Master Jareth put a circulation spell in here to keep prisoners from suffocating."
"If you would, please." Sarah bowed slightly and the Hands wrestled the clear glass dome over the hole and vanished.
Hoggle poked at Sarah's luggage. "Looks like yer covered for the time being."
She nodded. "Yes, I'll have to talk to Jareth about getting a bed and a crib in here if this is where I'll live."
"I'll take ye to the Junk Yard outside the Goblin City, tomorrow." Hoggle promised. "That's where everyone in the Labyrinth gets their stuff. I'll lend ya some blankets and such to bed down in tonight."
"Thanks, Hoggle." She sighed and sat against the wall. She swallowed hard as facts began to hit her; her stepmother had banished her from the human world forever.
She might never see her Father again, she'd never go to Grandma Jo's for Christmas again, there were so many things in the Aboveground that she'd miss sorely; hamburgers, lipstick, hot running water…
Hoggle squatted down beside her and patted her back as the tears started to fall.
****
End Chapter Three