Jareth left her alone for two days, two days in which she spent her time learning how to care for the little baby she had borne. The child still had no name. Sarah wasn't ready to give her a name, and with that name, personality. She knew she loved the infant, and she knew she could not give her up again, but she was still far from a doting mother.
Jareth had placed a small library of books at her disposal, which Sarah had discovered on the afternoon of her first day in the castle beyond the goblin city. She spent hours in there, and hours on the balcony overlooking the Labyrinth. Often she slept. Sometimes she stared off into space, her mind registering nothing. It was at these times that her mind did what her body used sleep to do—heal. She was healing bodily and mentally. Her heart still ached, and there was nothing she knew that could fix that.
Just because the Goblin King was not with her didn't mean he wasn't watching her. Indeed, he had a crystal trained on her all hours of the day. Engaged in his duties—whether amusing himself by kicking the goblins about or actually doing work—the crystal was always nearby. A simple glance from time to time confirmed all his doubts and all his assurances about Sarah Williams. He wasn't stupid. She was healing…but not completely. There were things there that would never heal the way she was going. Jareth sighed. He was going to have to do this the hard way.
But was it really the hard way? The Goblin King considered. He had loved Sarah since she was old enough to attract his attention. She had been eight or nine years old. That was the year she'd received a present from her mother, the battered copy of a play entitled Labyrinth. The script bore little resemblance to his actual domain, and the king in the story was certainly not Jareth. But still…still there was something in the way she recited the words and the way she avidly sucked herself into the story that had drawn his attention. There was magic in her childish acting.
Children fascinated the Goblin King, but this one little girl stuck with him as she grew. She didn't put away the games and toys as most girls did when they entered junior high school. Through the years, her love of fantasy and make-believe had only grown stronger as her friends began to disappear into the world of dating and makeup. And the Goblin King had continued to watch her, enthralled.
He refused to admit, for the longest time, that he was actually in love with the child. But the minute one of his airhead goblins gave her the words, the words to send her half-brother into the arms of the Goblin King, Jareth had no choice but to play the game. He changed it to somewhat mirror her book, though he refused to tell himself the changes were for her benefit. He played along—a game for a half-grown child not ready yet for promises of the heart. He would have scoffed at the offer of her little brother if he could have, but once said, the words could not be taken back. She had to enter the Labyrinth, and he had to try and defeat her.
The first crystal he offered her, in the dark cave of her parents' bedroom, had been false. He knew she would not accept it, knew she hadn't meant to send the screaming baby away. But the second time, when they faced off amid the ruins of the Escher room, that had been real. The crystal he extended had been his heart. She refused it.
She didn't understand what it was you offered her, the voice inside his head screamed. And at long last, Jareth freely admitted the truth. At fifteen years old, a child still in the ways of the world, Sarah had not understood what it was he wanted of her. She couldn't see him as anything but the story's villain. Every good story has a villain… So what else was there to be? Beautiful heroines don't battle Prince Charming.
After closing his world to her when she turned sixteen, Jareth had been moody and uncooperative…even more than usual. So it was with some shock that he considered the fact that she might have been wanting something very similar to what he'd been wanting these long years since he'd last beheld her. He nearly couldn't believe it, but her candid words to the sleeping infant had not had any air of falsity about them. She was serious. She….
A plan began forming in Jareth's devious mind. He was nothing if not devious. A perfect king for the goblins. Sarah refused to allow her heart to heal. She wouldn't—perhaps couldn't—do it on her own. So Jareth would help things along a bit…and satisfy his own raging curiosity and desire at the same time.
"I'll have you yet, Sarah," he whispered. "Child or no child, your heart doesn't belong up there. I know that now; your own words have betrayed you. Now if I can only make you see it." Jareth smiled. The games had begun, this time with a much bigger prize than a screaming half-brother. Sarah's own heart.
*****
"Come now, Sarah," he said as he appeared in front of her. She tensed, her arms immediately coming up to press the child to her shoulder as if to shield the infant from his leering face.
"Oh hush," Jareth said. "I gave her back to you; why should I steal her away again?"
Sarah's soft blue eyes held less trust than a rabbit encountering a wolf. "Why did you give her back to me?"
"Because you didn't mean what you said."
"I didn't mean it with Toby either."
Jareth shrugged. "That was different. You had to be shown that you didn't really mean it, both times. With Toby, taking him proved that you really did care enough for him to fight to get him back. With this little one, returning her proved that you really do love her." He sighed and extended a hand to her, palm up. She stared up at him warily and did not move.
"Sarah, what will it take for you to trust me?" he asked simply. "I gave her back. I also told you that you would come to no harm while under my protection. That includes from me. Now, please. Trust me."
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Still the skeptic?" Jareth sighed and shook his head. "I told you that your time here was to heal. But you can't do it by just sitting here and watching life go by without you." He bent down and plucked the child easily from her grasp. Before she could argue, he had summoned the nursemaid and had her take the baby away.
"What—" Sarah argued, but Jareth hushed her.
"You are a person too, are you not?" he demanded. "Come with me, then. There are parts of the Labyrinth you've never seen. Three years ago you barely scratched the surface of all I own. Let me show you."
Sarah cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at where the large hulk of the nursemaid was cooing to the baby.
"She'll be returned to you. Consider it babysitting." Jareth chuckled and held out his long-fingered hand once more. "Come."
Not seeing much choice, Sarah took it.
*****
"I wish you'd somehow figure out that you can trust me," the Goblin King said conversationally as they strolled through the winding sandstone of the Labyrinth.
"I trust you about as far as I can throw you, Goblin King," Sarah replied. She kicked at the stone beneath her feet and refused to look up at him. She remembered this place, the stone maze she had spent so many hours in. She didn't know how Jareth could tell one part of his kingdom from the others, but she assumed he could. He didn't say anything about getting lost in his own Labyrinth.
When the king of the goblins said nothing, Sarah looked up to see his expression. He was no longer beside her.
Heart sinking, head shrieking at her for walking into yet another trap, Sarah spun around in a full circle. Nothing.
"Jareth?" she called hesitantly. Then, with rising anger and panic, "Jareth!"
A familiar, dry chuckle sounded from directly behind her, and Sarah whirled to face him with anger written on her face. "Jareth—"
"What's the matter?" he asked craftily. "Don't trust me, do you? You didn't expect me to disappear on you. Isn't that trust?"
Sarah stared at him, avoiding an answer. Jareth merely smiled and reached forward, taking her hand in his gloved one. He held it up, her fingers limply curved around the back of his. "You trust me more than you know, Sarah. Once you figure it out, the question won't seem so strange to you."
"I don't understand you," Sarah said, thinking it as safe an answer to that as any. "How can I trust someone I don't understand?"
"Sweet Sarah, have you a need to understand everything?" Jareth countered. He began walking again, but did not release her hand. Sarah didn't think to pull away. The dialogue turned more to actual conversation than arguing. "You don't always understand your parents, I daresay. Yet you trust them, do you not?"
"No," Sarah said flatly. Her tone was carefully schooled, the perfect actress. But Jareth saw past it in a heartbeat. His Sarah, the real Sarah, didn't talk woodenly about anything. She cared too much.
"Why not?" he asked, striving to keep a casual note in his voice. Slowly, he was attempting to lead her into uncomfortable territory, into the realm of past history where she devoutly did not want to go. If he kept it casual, however, he might lure her into giving away information….
No such luck.
"Leave me alone, Goblin King. I will not be baited. My stories are my own to keep, and the child my own cross to bear since you will not free me from it."
"Secrets are more of a burden than a child."
"But I choose to keep them. They are mine to keep."
Jareth inclined his head at that, though unwillingly, and for a moment they walked in silence. Then Sarah pulled her hand away from his, took a deep breath, and spoke again. "Since you're being so inquisitive today, can I reciprocate?" She looked up at him. "I don't understand you. I know nothing about you."
Jareth smiled. "Few do."
"Why is that?"
He shrugged and pulled a crystal out of the air. "Probably for the same reason you do not wish to answer my questions. Secrecy. Secrecy is power, Sarah. People fear what they do not understand."
"Not always." She stopped walking, and Jareth felt her eyes upon him. He stopped too, and slowly turned to her. Sarah swallowed, as if unsure, and took a long moment to gather her thoughts before continuing to speak. "I don't fear you anymore, Jareth, even though I know nothing about you. What little I do know tells me that…." Here she paused. "I don't know!" she spat, running a hand frustratedly through her dark hair. "I've had years to think about that night you took Toby, and I've realized many things about those hours I spent here, in your Labyrinth. I don't think you were being generous at all, but I don't see you as the villain. You did what I asked, though you twisted everything around to fit your idea of what I wished. You were cruel, but not…unkind. Does that make any sense at all?"
"Strangely, yes," Jareth said quietly.
"What I've learned tells me that you won't harm me while I am here. Not really. But you also act on whims, harsh ones. I wouldn't put it past you to leave me here, just for your amusement." She shrugged. "Cruel, but not unkind. You wouldn't place me in any real danger, but you would make me fear it."
Jareth smiled. "You have learned much, I see, in the time between our meetings."
Sarah shrugged. "Maybe."
There was silence as they walked. A series of short, shallow steps gave Jareth the opportunity to gently place a hand on her arm just below the elbow on the pretense of helping her down. Then, Jareth's voice again. "You've been thinking of the Labyrinth, then?"
Sarah nodded, but a crease formed between her eyebrows. "I tried not to. It should have been a horrible task, something I remembered with distaste, but I don't. I treasure my memories of my time here, the friends I made…" You. The word hung in the air, unsaid. It didn't need to be.
"But you put away the games, the stories. You stopped acting the fairy tales."
Sarah didn't question how he knew this. "But I never stopped believing in them." She looked at him again, a small smile on her face. "How could I, when I had met one face-to-face?"
The words gave Jareth a wedge with which to unbalance her again. He smirked. "Not quite face-to-face yet," he said, and before she could anticipate his actions, he leaned down and swiftly placed a gentle, fleeting kiss to her lips. She stopped, frozen with shock, suddenly remembering with vivid clarity the one moment back at her California house where he had held her in his arms. She stared up at him. "Now you have," Jareth said, sounding very pleased with himself. He chuckled at her expression, captured her hand once again, and continued walking.
