A/N: I have discovered a most bizarre phenomenon. I have two copies of "Labyrinth." One of them is taped off the Disney channel, from like four years ago. The other is, I guess, an 'official' copy, store-bought and everything. That's not the phenomenon.
At the end of the movie, the final confrontation scene, when Sarah asks Jareth what he's done that's so generous, one of the things he says is, "I have reordered time for you." Still not phenomenal, I know, but hang with me.
In my store-bought version, the camera is focused on Jareth, and you can see him kind of raise his arm, but nothing else. Okay, so my recorded-off-the-Disney-Channel one shows Jareth pointing to this 13-hour clock, and it's hands are going berserk.
So now I'm thinking, what the heck? Why is the official version missing this? Which version is right? So I'm wondering: which version do you all have, or remember? If you have the movie with the cover divided into these different framey things, then you probably don't have the strange clock version. Can anyone solve this mystery?
Disclaimer: Today's chapter title comes from David Bowie's (very fitting, no?) "Heroes" Labyrinth's really just not mine.
Never and Forever
Chapter Eight
We Kissed as though Nothing Would Fall
"I'm Jareth, King of the Incredible Jerk-Offs. Oh yes, I've saved your life twice because that's just the sort of white knight in shining armor I am. Oh no, no need to thank me. My reward comes from working up a load of sexual tension, then prancing away like a magnificent prick."
Sarah was grumbling. Pacing up and down the garden walk that she and Jareth had walked the night before, though it looked entirely different in the daylight. Golden and warm to match the sun, bright green leaves catching the light and keeping some of it for their own, letting some of it filter down pure and white against the ground.
"I don't even know how it happened. Sure, it was just one kiss, but it was my first kiss. Shouldn't there be some meaning behind that? I don't know if I even like him. It was just, I was standing closer, then he was standing closer –"
"Then you tripped and he caught you with his lips?"
"Lomaria!" Sarah cried, whirling around to find the motherly figure a few feet behind her. "How long have you been following me?" A slight blush rose to Sarah's cheeks as she remembered the diatribe she'd been on for, oh dear, it was getting to be nearly an hour now.
"Long enough." Lomaria said with a smile. "I did get to wondering when you never came back last night." Sarah gasped, slapping her forehead lightly, cringing.
"I'm so sorry, I –"
"It's all right, Sarah." Lomaria reassured her. "Ceri told me what happened last night."
"Ceri told you – what?" Sarah said, trying to remember when she had last seen the particular goblin brother.
"It's not important, dear. But I can tell that King Jareth left rather abruptly, eh?" Lomaria said with a hard-pressed smile.
"Yes. Apparently he went traipsing off to play with the elves – some goblin maid told me he'd be back tomorrow night – and I'll kill him!"
"He's mostly immortal, you know." Lomaria said with a good-natured wink.
"I just," Sarah started, slumping down on a garden bench, "I don't know what to think about him. He's the villain for thirteen straight hours and then he gets mad at me when I expect him to continue acting that way –"
"The only person who thinks King Jareth is a villain," Lomaria interrupted, "is you. And possibly himself. Sarah, you know very little about him."
"Well no one's very willing to share, either! You all seem quite content delivering quaint little sayings and cryptic warnings, but that doesn't help me at all!" Sarah cried, exasperated.
"Then listen to me now." Lomaria said firmly, moving to stand in front of Sarah's line of vision. "Don't have this out with me. Have this out with King Jareth. He's the one you want answers from."
"Too bad he's oh-so conveniently disappeared." Sarah muttered under her breath.
~
"We have already discussed the terms of the agreement, Highness Jareth. It is either all, or nothing."
"I know it, Lord Charmont." Jareth replied softly, his eyes turned away from the King of the Elves who sat before him, and seemingly staring into the blank space behind him. It was not the tapestries that Jareth was seeing, however. He was seeing Sarah, her face enlightened by the moonlight and tipped up to his. Oh, how he had made a mess of things. Perhaps his father had been right all along.
"It comes to this." Jareth said finally, and after hours of discussion, King Charmont of the Elves, looking worse for the wear and exceptionally ready to step down from his position, held his breath as the King of the Goblins made his decision. "Your offer is generous, and fair. And though I have been reluctant, understand what I do is in the interest of my people. Of our people." A weighted pause hung between them as King Charmont met Jareth's eyes, looking bright and hopeful. "I accept your terms."
An audible sigh of relief ran through the room, and Jareth picked up an elaborate white quill, and signed his name without hesitation to a sheet of heavy parchment. King Charmont added his name just below Jareth's, completing the first treaty between the two kingdoms – ever.
Jareth rose to shake the old elf's hand, and pushed the thought that he had just signed away his life to the back of his mind. The two leaders settled back in their high back chairs as seven witnesses added their signatures to the document, a formality at best.
"Now," Jareth began firmly, "we will discuss my mother."
~
"Lomaria said I might find you here." Hoggle looked up in surprise to see Sarah standing in the doorway of the garden shed, inconspicuously hidden in the back woods of the castle. "Hoggle, please. Can I talk to you?" Hoggle had expected a lot of things from Sarah, the next time he saw her. After their fight the last time they had spoken – he had refused to help her solve the Labyrinth for a second time to find King Jareth's hidden crystal – he had thought she would be permanently enraged with him. That she would yell the next time she saw him, or ignore him. Not seek him out to ask for a word as calmly as someone asking the time.
"Sure, Sarah." Hoggle replied, looking to Sarah somewhat stunned, and tossing his spade onto a shelf before following her out into the daylight.
"Why did you help me through the Labyrinth the first time?" Sarah asked without preamble, always so blunt with her words. Hoggle stared at her, surprised for a moment.
"I, uh… we's friends, Sarah. That's what friends do, right?" Sarah studied him, the sunlight filtering through the ancient, overbearing trees that surrounded the gardening shed and other small servants' buildings.
"Then why wouldn't you help me the second time?" Sarah was clearly undeterred, and stared at Hoggle with a Jareth-like intensity, though her gaze was soft, and child-like. Hoggle met her eyes, and sighed.
"We knew yeh were coming. Long afore yeh came." Sarah remembered the way he had seemed not the least surprised when she first met him, stumbling outside the gates of the Labyrinth and fresh with a sense of adventure. Somehow, however, she thought that perhaps this was not what Hoggle meant. "Sometimes yeh need a shove in the right direction to meet yer own fate." Hoggle said softly, earnestly, as though he wanted Sarah to take those words to her heart and understand them forever. The problem with that, of course, was that Sarah didn't understand, not at all.
~
Sarah stared out the window, feeling defeated. They had sworn he would be back by now. She'd spent yesterday searching for answers, even though the one she really wanted to ask had vanished to some mysterious elf kingdom, which no one in this damned city was very open about in the first place. Now she had answers, or at least, had parts of answers, but they all blurred together to make some sort of incomplete nonsense. She couldn't help but feel that if she could just see him, things would fall in place.
The downside of that, of course, was that it was now nearly midnight, and Sarah eyes were trained on the road just outside the castle, waiting for him. They'd expected him by dusk. Sarah hadn't said a word, told herself she didn't care if he ever came back, though she had spent the previous night in his guest room. She didn't care if he died – if he even could, that is – but she couldn't stop herself from waiting. Waiting to see him, wondering what was taking him so long, six hours too long. She'd heard from some passing servants earlier that day that he would arrive horseback, following some code of tradition or another – Sarah didn't much care.
He had vanished without warning. Made her blood boil, mocked her, hurt her, and yet she waited at the window. The first clap of thunder made her her jump, the night sky darkened, hauntingly. The first raindrops fell softly, then harder, harsher till it poured.
Sarah stood on her tiptoes, trying to peer through the densely falling rain. The drops were sterling silver, like little drips of burnished metal falling through the sky. She squinted, but could not see through the silver haze. There was nothing else for it, she decided. She'd have to go outside. She would not wait for him, not like some stupid, lovelorn, diary writing, fairy princess. The rain was just too strange, and she wanted to see it up close, that was all.
At first she lingered by the castle gates, watching the sterling droplets smack against her palm, soft and fine as talcum, then splay across her skin to go rolling to the ground. It must be nearly one, or perhaps thirteen o'clock. Did that make it the next day? Was, perhaps, the weather slowing him down? Why did she care, anyway? She didn't care, she just wanted answers. Right.
"Is this denial?" Sarah wondered aloud softly, slowly straying from the castle, following the main road to the beginning of the city.
A soft rumble caught her attention, the ground trembling ever so slightly beneath her feet. Thunder crashed threateningly, and Sarah's eyes shot up to the sky. Tiny sparks of golden lightening crackled through the air, electricity pulsing around her as the storm gathered speed. The golden sparks seemed close enough to touch, and Sarah reached one small hand up to the dangerous sky, and then the world was suddenly illuminated by a brilliant flash of pure white lightening.
It was more than a flash, it was as though the world had suddenly been captured in a terrifying white fire, and it was then that Sarah saw the huge black horse storming towards her, hooves thundering across the earth and making the ground tremble.
Sarah's breath caught in her throat as Jareth brought his steed to a sudden stop beside her, the white light faded and the midnight sky returned, clouded with a swirl of smoky haze
"What in the everlasting torments of hell are you doing out here?" Jareth demanded, silver raindrops clinging to his ethereal hair and slipping off in clumps.
"Don't yell at me." Sarah cried, yelling herself just to be heard above the roaring claps of thunder. "Where did you go? Why did you leave?" Jareth smiled slightly at that.
"I did not know you cared."
"I don't!" But Sarah didn't even need to see the smirk on Jareth's face to know that he believed it even less than she did. "I just – I thought that maybe some part of you was human, but that's looking – what?" Sarah broke off in mid-shout to stare at Jareth's extended hand.
"Come here. I will not argue with you in the middle of the Goblin City."
"It's never stopped you before."
"Sarah, just come here. We shall ride back to the castle where you do not have to screech to be heard over the thunder." Sarah's thoughts skimmed over the imbedded insult and went straight to the horse.
"I'll walk, thanks."
"It's pouring. Have a little dignity, will you?" But Sarah ignored him, turning quickly away and walking towards the castle, her bare feet slipping against the slick stone. She wished she had thought things through enough to put on shoes. Or to not come after him at all, for Christ's sake!
His arm swooped around her before she could get far, pulling her swiftly up in front of him in one fluid motion.
"Jareth, no!" Sarah protested, shrinking away from the horse yet trying not to lean back into the body behind her.
"Honestly, Sarah, you cannot be afraid of horses?" Sarah didn't say anything, only eyed both horse and rider warily, her hands clenched near her chest. Jareth, surprised, took her silence to be an affirmation and slipped his arm around her waist to keep her steady. "I never would have pictured," he said, trying not to laugh, "a strong girl like you afraid of a beast of burden."
"I'm not afraid." Sarah said weakly. She could feel his heartbeat through her back, thick and heavy. "I just don't like them."
The two of them rode through the city and into the castle, rough iron gates clashing behind them, louder than the fading storm. Suddenly Jareth's arm was gone, his body slipped away as he slid elegantly off the horse, handing the reins to a goblin servant before offering Sarah a hand.
"Would the lady care to join me on the ground? Or does she fear that as well?" Sarah ignored the smirk and stared down at the dirt floor, which suddenly seemed very far away. Jareth, obviously greatly amused, placed his hands around her waist and lifted her down, and Sarah couldn't help but notice that chivalry was not a concept lost on this man.
"Don't laugh at me. Just because I don't come from the medieval dimension doesn't make me inept."
"No. It just makes you very, very out of place." Jareth replied, hands still around her waist, horse led away by a goblin who looked as though this was one conversation he would rather hear about the next morning in the kitchen.
"Well that's your fault, now isn't it?" Sarah said, stepping away from him, but not backing down.
"I did what you asked and you cannot deny it."
"They're just words, Jareth. They don't mean anything."
"You were unhappy where you were."
"How do you know?" Sarah demanded, though quietly, as though she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.
"I saw you. I saw you play your little games and try to see the world as though it were some place of possibilities – it isn't. Above ground or under, nothing is as you would see it."
"You were watching me? For how long? Why?"
"I thought that was rather obvious." Jareth said, staring down at her.
"But those things you said – in the ballroom – you didn't mean it – "
"Do not presume to understand me, Sarah." Jareth said, before she could say exactly what he did not want to hear. "You know nothing of darkness, nothing of hate, nothing of pain. The passion slips through your fingers and you do not begin to comprehend!"
"I know I don't!" Sarah cried, matching his stare and wishing there could be an easy answer with him. "I don't understand you and you wear so many damned masks that I can never tell if I've seen you, or if there is a you or if I've been trapped in an illusion by a man who doesn't know himself! And I don't care! I don't care, and all I want is to kiss you again!"
He needed no other invitation. But there was nothing gentle, nothing placid, nothing achingly calm about this kiss. His hands clenched around her forearms and pulled her to him, his lips slammed down on hers with a bruising impact, roughly pursuing again and again. Sarah would have gasped, if she had time to breath, but was too consumed by painful passion pouring over her. He scorched her lips and burned her arms and still her hands traced their way up his velvet-clad shoulders, her knees collapsing under her till he was the only thing supporting her. The world fell away, her very mind died before her as he ruthlessly pursued her, stumbling back slightly though his lips still held hers captive.
Sarah fell forward when he pulled away, his eyes ablaze with black fire, still clutching her arms painfully tight with his fierce leather grip.
"You cannot accept it." He hissed, his face still so very close to hers, his wild flaxen locks brushing against her chilled skin. "You will never know the darkness, child."
His last word stung, more than her swelled lips or the bruises on her arms as he let her go, abruptly turning on his heel. Child or not, she would not let him have the last word. Not when he had hurt her so.
"What would you have said?"
"What?" Jareth snarled, his back still turned.
"If I had beaten the Escher Room. Just minutes to spare, as I said the right words. What would you have said? Stop? Wait? Would you offer me my dreams?" Jareth turned, the fire frozen from his features by cold shock. He stared, but Sarah would not stop. "If I let you rule me, would you give me anything I wanted?"
"Sarah." It was a warning, and all that he could manage.
"Fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave. Would you have offered?"
"How?" Jareth hissed, storming closer once more. He did not say it, but they could both feel it in the air. How could you see into my soul like that?
"You have no power over me." Sarah whispered.
"Don't I?" He demanded, grabbing her wrist before she could turn away. His free hand reached up to cup her cheek, holding her gaze firm, though she would not have looked away.
"Never." Sarah spat, wrenching her hand free and backing quickly away. She turned away from him and walked down the hall, determined not to run. She tried to make her heart slow down, to stop her pulse from racing, to keep the icy blood out of her veins that was spreading like poison. Poison from his kiss.
"How long will you believe your own lies?" He merely whispered it, but it reached her, yards away, floated down the corridor to wrap around her, a mocking truth. And Sarah ran.