Vengeful Nightmares

Chapter 23

Linda Williams was a pretty woman and a nice one, except for one little thing that, at best, made her difficult to live with; she was an alcoholic. Sarah didn't notice it much until she was about five, old enough to know that her friends' moms were different. Up till that time, she didn't understand what it was that her parents sometimes fought about. She knew that sometimes Mommy said nasty things to Daddy, and when this happened Daddy sent Sarah to her room 'till things were calmer'. A few times she heard someone getting hit, and she knew that it was Mommy who was doing the hitting. Then there was shouting, then the sound of the door slamming and the car revving up. This happened quite often. A few times, her father had to bring her next door to stay for a bit while he 'went to get Mommy', and on one such occasion Sarah heard him say something about a D.U.I., whatever that was.

At fifteen, Sarah now understood everything for what it was. Her mother had an illness, one that couldn't be cured by some type of magic pill, like the ones they pushed during allergy season. While she was drunk, she became a different person; she was often vindictive, manipulating and cruel. Sarah knew that this wasn't how she really was, but she was glad her father had won the custody battle. It was too easy, too tempting for her mother to slip up when things got hard. They still saw each other now and then, and Sarah got a card with a twenty dollar bill or two on her birthdays, but she wasn't really a part of Sarah's life anymore.

Sarah saw all of this happening before her, and some of these memories were harder to watch than others. She didn't crack, though. She had come to terms with most of it some time ago, and the process had been accelerated by her trip through Jareth's Labyrinth. She had grown up considerably since then.

Sarah blinked, and stared as the scene changed into a wedding scene. She remembered this very well. Her father had decided to remarry, after spending several years 'on the rebound', and Sarah had been twelve at the time. She hadn't approved of her father's choice, but now, she reflected, she wouldn't have approved of any choice that involved upsetting the 'balance' of things.

Dinah and her father had conceived Toby about a year later, though she wasn't quite sure and she didn't feel like doing the math, and her uneasy truce with her stepmother had been knocked down several points. She hadn't wanted a younger sibling at the time, but her father had told her that he and Dinah wanted this baby, and she should just give it a chance. It wasn't like she could change anything, so she might just as well accept it…right? Yeah, whatever. Having to deal with Dinah's bizarre cravings was bad enough, since half the time she was the one who had to prepare those obnoxious concoctions, but the sounds of her stepmother's morning sickness penetrating her bedroom walls was enough to put her off breakfast for the duration of Dinah's first trimester.

Dinah was very good about trying to include her, she had to admit. Her stepmother really had wanted to make things work, and she liked Sarah enough to make an extra effort. She included her in several of the preparations by taking her shopping for baby things, and once she made a special trip out of schedule to go to Pizza Hut, where they shared a medium pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of Pepsi. By the middle of the meal they were actually having a good time, and they both cracked up when Dinah caught Sarah ogling their waiter's behind. The boy had noticed, and he had seemed both shocked and flattered. The topper of the afternoon, and Dinah never let Sarah forget it, was when their blushing waiter brought Sarah a plastic egg from the chicken machine; it was one of those machines you put a quarter into, and the fake chicken would go 'bawk-bawk', and give you a plastic egg with a prize inside. Sarah had been so embarrassed that she couldn't finish her pizza, but on the ride home both she and Dinah had almost had themselves in stitches from laughing so hard.

Even so, Sarah still resented her. Dinah wasn't a very passive woman, and, like Sarah, she liked doing and having things her own way. Since she was the authority figure she often won out, but Sarah hardly felt obliged to obey her; after all, why should she respect a woman who didn't even respect her stepdaughter's privacy? She was always nosing around Sarah's room for one reason or another, as if Sarah actually had something of hers. She was always misplacing things, and her first thought always seemed to be that Sarah had taken it. Which was absurd, because it was usually the other way around. She was never satisfied with the way Sarah kept her room, and she would often rearrange Sarah's things while the girl was at school. "It may be your room, but it's still in my house. I won't have it looking like a pig pen!" she would tell Sarah. It didn't seem to matter to Dinah that before she had moved in with them it had just been 'Peter's house', or that Sarah's room was hardly ever messy. When Toby was born, Dinah would sometimes take one of Sarah's toys from her room for him to play with, without asking Sarah's permission.

Sarah saw her father asking Dinah if she should ask Sarah first, and Dinah had replied, "Sarah won't mind."

"Well, Dinah, I did mind." She muttered. I wasn't that she cared so much for her toys; it was a simple matter of her privacy being invaded. Her privacy, and her personal territory. Supposing she had left her diary open, or something?

Personality conflicts abounded. And, as Sarah had declaimed many a time, it wasn't fair. Her father sometimes seemed more concerned with appeasing his wife's temper than he was in defending Sarah, but as Sarah watched these images from her detached position, she realized that this was as much for her as it was for Dinah. If Dinah was happy, she often left Sarah to calm down instead of pursuing the matter. The Sarah of the past would have argued that he had only wanted peace and quiet, but the Sarah that watched now saw the covert glances he shot in her direction, and realized that though he did want quiet, he also wanted to make sure that both of them came out of it unscathed by each other's tempers. The poor man was up to his eyeballs in estrogen!

"This isn't that hard!" Sarah thought to herself. She should have known better.

* * *

"It doesn't look that far." Sarah saw herself saying. She was standing beside herself and the Goblin King on the hill that overlooked the Labyrinth.

She remembered how the hair on the back of her neck had stood up when Jareth informed her, his mouth almost touching her ear, "It's further than you think, and time is short." Jareth stepped back, and pointed to a clock that had appeared in midair, saying, "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth before your baby brother becomes one of us forever…Such a pity…"

Sarah followed herself down the hill, averting her eyes out of respect for her friend; she knew that he would be standing at the bottom of the hill by the little pond, in an extremely compromising position and in a state of blissful ignorance regarding the person who had just happened upon him. How embarrassed he had been, but she wasn't exactly thrilled either. Upon discovering him, her mind had raced briefly as she looked away. "Oh, jeez! Should I wait till he's done? Or go back? No, he'll hear me leaving, and think I'm some kind of pervert. Better just to get his attention…oh, boy…"

"Excuse me?" she said timidly. The little man jumped, hurriedly scrambling for decency. There followed a brief exchange of insults after Hoggle had given her the run-around when she asked him where the door to the Labyrinth was. Well, she supposed she couldn't blame him for being a little grouchy…after all, who wouldn't be a bit punchy after getting caught literally with their pants down?

Finally she got Hoggle to let her in, intentionally screwing up his name as a parting shot when he headed back out, taking his attitude with him. She now regretted doing this, seeing that he was only trying to cover up his embarrassment. It like he was used to dealing with people on a frequent basis, so she should have just let him have his revenge and left him alone.

But Sarah was getting impatient. "Yes, I know all this!" she said aloud to herself, "These are just scenes from the past. Why should they be so important?"

"Because your past molded who you are right now." said the cougar, whom Sarah hadn't noticed before. It was sitting at her right, but she could barely make it out. Sarah could have sworn that it had spoken with her voice.

"Who are you?" she asked, not even questioning her lack of fear regarding this massive cat.

"Well…in a way, I'm you. I'm the part of you that lets you use the fae magic, the part of you that came from Jareth. We are not separate, Sarah, but one being. That is why you can hardly see me. But we can talk to each other."

"Oh…what should I call you?" asked Sarah, suddenly shy for no reason that she could think of. Perhaps it was because the magic that used to be a part of Jareth was now a part of her.

The cougar only vanished, and said, "Nothing. Just speak, and I will answer you."

Sarah was about to say something else, but the scene changed, revealing Jareth. He was gazing pensively into one of his crystals, surrounded by a troupe of goblins. She saw him chewing at the inside of his cheek before saying, "She's in the oubliette." When the goblins began to laugh, he snapped tiredly, "Shut up! She should not have gotten as far as the oubliette, she should have given up by now!"

"She'll never give up." Stated one particularly observant goblin.

"Won't she? The dwarf's about to lead her back to the beginning; she'll soon give up when she realizes she has to start all over again!" He chucked, then noticed that he was the only one doing so and said impatiently, "Well, laugh!"

Sarah snorted. "You really like to control people, don't you?" She had read about this in her changed book, but seeing and hearing it for herself was a bit different.

Next thing she knew, Sarah was in the underground tunnels of the Labyrinth. She saw the images of herself and Hoggle come across the blind beggar, and remembered having a feeling that something wasn't right. The crystal was an indication, but seeing it jump into the beggar's alms cup proved it. Hearing Hoggle groan 'Oh, no' meant that he had an inkling of what was about to happen. The scene jumped ahead a few minutes, and Jareth's statements were actually two in one. She heard the words that he spoke, but there was an echoing undercurrent of words from the heart that she was now able to hear.

"And you, Sarah…How are you enjoying my Labyrinth? (I want to impress you, you are very beautiful.)"

The Sarah from the past hesitated for a moment, then thrust her chin forward and replied, "It's a piece of cake."

Hoggle groaned, and Jareth's flirtatious eyes hardened as he became offended. "Really? Then how about upping the stakes, hmm? (Beautiful or no, you won't win this argument.)" Jareth rotated his finger, causing the clock to jump a few hours ahead, and Sarah had protested that it wasn't fair. He turned to her, and as he walked away, he gibed, "You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is. (A king must not look weak in front of his subjects. I will show you my power.) So the Labyrinth is a piece of cake, is it? Well, let's see how you deal with this little slice. (You've injured my pride, and I must compensate.)

He produced a crystal and threw it down the tunnel, where it became the whirring blade machine that Hoggle called 'the cleaners'. While Sarah watched herself and her friend run away from it, she heard Jareth's voice silently command the huge machine, "If they don't discover the panel, you will disappear." So they had never actually been in danger. Sarah realized that, throughout her trek in the Labyrinth, she had never actually been harmed.

Now Jareth was cornering Hoggle by the rocks that were positioned to make a pretty convincing image of his face. Sarah admired the work that went into it, but only briefly. Once again, she heard his double-voiced statements. She didn't hear Hoggle's answers, because the scene kept jumping ahead to play back the next sets of words that came from Jareth.

"Well, if it isn't you! And where…are you…going? (She doesn't need your help.)"

"I see…for a minute there, I thought you were running to help her. (Not your help.) But, um, no…Not after my warnings, that would be stupid."

"Oh dear, poor Hoghead! I just noticed your lovely jewels are missing. (Clever girl, using him to her advantage.)"

"Wait! I've got a much better plan, Hoggle. Give her this. (A dream for her might help me.)"

"It's a present. (A very special present.)"

"Oh, now why the concern? (What right do you have?)"

"Oh come, come, come, Hogbrain! I'm surprised at you, losing your head over a girl! (She can't love you, anyway. Your in for a broken heart if you think so.)"

"You don't think a young girl could ever like a repulsive, little scab like you, do you? (I certainly don't understand how she could like you if she knows what a liar you are.)"

"What, bosom companions? Friends? (How rediculous…)

"You'll give her that, Hoggle, or I'll tip you straight into the Bog of Eternal Stench before you can blink! (I won't let you back out now!)"

"And Hoggle? If she ever kisses you, I'll turn you into a prince…'Prince of the Land of Stench!' (She is mine to kiss, not yours.)"

Sarah was taken aback, not only by his possessiveness, but by his jealousy. For one thing, she didn't belong to anyone. For another, Jareth was actually worried about the two of them having a romance. She didn't see why that would occur to him. She and Hoggle loved each other, just not in that way. They were just good friends, that was all. Even if Hoggle had been interested, he would have been too shy to say so.

Sarah frowned. For a few days after her trip through the Labyrinth he had been acting pretty nervous, and then, just like that, he had seemed immensely relieved about something. Sarah had assumed that it was because he was worried about Jareth trying to punish him, but now she knew that this wasn't the case. She didn't know how the Chamber let her know about this without playing a scene, but now she knew the reason for his jumpy behavior. Hoggle had been terrified that he was in love with her. He had felt like a boulder had rolled off his back when he realized that he was not. This was just the first time since he was a boy that he actually cared a damn for someone other than himself. It was the fact that he was entertaining the idea that he felt that way about her when he really didn't that had made him uncomfortable.

Time had jumped ahead several hours, and Sarah was confronting Jareth for the final time. Sarah briefly wondered why the Chamber had chosen to omit her time in the dream bubble that had brought her to the ballroom, but she had no time to ponder this. If she didn't pay attention, she might miss something.

"Give me the child." Sarah began as he slowly approached her.

"Sarah, beware. I have been generous up till now, but I can be cruel. (As cruel as you can be…and I have been generous.)"

"Generous…what have you done that's generous?"

"Everything! Everything that you wanted, I have done. (I would do anything…) You asked that the child be taken, I took him. (He's back in his crib as we speak.) You cowered before me, I was frightening. (I hope I didn't overdo it.) I have re-ordered time, (For you.) I have turned the world upside down, (As well as my heart, all for you.) and have done it all for you. (All for you!) I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. (Don't expect me to just be a monster!)"

Sarah continued relentlessly. "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is…" she had left out 'to take back the child that you have stolen', but it hardly mattered. Toby was already save in bed.

"Stop!" Jareth held up a hand, "Wait. Look, Sarah. Look what I'm offering you. (I love you, can't you see that!)"

"My will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great…Damn! I can never remember that line!"

"Just fear me, (As I fear the strike of the clock) love me, (Please.) do as I say, (I am the king.) and I will be your slave. (Oh, forever!)"

"My kingdom is great, my kingdom is great…"

(Please, please, don't remember…)

"You have no power over me."

(You…what have you done to me? How could a mortal hurt me so?)

Sarah saw something that had escaped her mortal eyes before. Like a bolt of lightning, a thin filament shot from Jareth's chest and connected itself to hers. She saw this happen, and looked down to find a similar filament, only more real, leading out from her body. That was when the connection had started, when she had refused him. When she had broken his heart. All light disappeared, and Sarah was left in the dark. She felt her limbs growing numb.

"Is there any way to reverse this?" Sarah asked, knowing that she would be answered by the cougar aspect of herself.

"Yes, Sarah. You know that. When you get back to the Goblin City, tell Jareth that you love him."

"I…I do love him, but…I don't really know him at all. How can I be sure that these feelings won't fade?"

"Like all loves of this sort, it will grow less intense as time wears on. But if it is a true love, it will survive. Also, if it is true, you will know when you tell Jareth. The thread that you see now will strengthen, and Jareth will receive his magic."

"Then you'll be gone." Sarah said, and the thought of it was almost heartbreaking. She would be losing a part of herself. But then, hadn't Jareth lost himself when he had fallen in love with her? She literally felt that she would die if that happened…and at last she began to understand fully what was happening to Jareth.

"No, you will not. When Jareth is restored to his full strength, the magic within you will regenerate. Though you still appear human, and will continue to appear so, you are now a fae. There is no going back. If you truly love him, he will get his powers back, and yours will regenerate; this happens when a human/fae love is reciprocated. The human becomes a fae in all but appearance, and will in turn have full fae powers. If the human does not love the fae in return…"

"What?"

"The human will stay human, unable to control the fae powers, which will eventually destroy him…or her. But you don't need to worry about that, I think. I feel no malice towards you; the fact that we are one feels very right."

"Yeah…I think so, too." Sarah said, smiling. She looked around her, but the door had not yet appeared. "I heard that fae live a long time. Will I?"

"I don't know."

So…how do I control these powers?"

"You can't fully control them until you accept them…and me. To control your magic you must acknowledge that they are a part of you, and they will allow themselves to be accessed. When you started this quest, you didn't understand. You were afraid of me. You wanted me out of you. But I am you, Sarah. Just accept that, and you will instinctively know how to use your powers like every fae."

That was all it took! "I accept! Be one with me, and I will be one with you."

"Well done…"

The door appeared before her, and she experienced the odd sensation of falling back into her body. She was incredibly tired, and she didn't know how she found the strength to open the door. Gaheris was there to meet her, and he was well prepared for what happened next. Sarah promptly passed out, and he caught her up and brought her downstairs.

* * *

Hoggle had dozed off some time before, and Sharee gave him a shake when she heard Gaheris coming down. The dwarf immediately got off the couch so that Gaheris would have a place to put Sarah. He didn't ask what had happened to her, having pretty easily figured out what had happened. "She'll be okay?" he asked.

"She'll be fine." Gaheris replied. Hoggle put his hand on her forehead, and his palm came away damp with her sweat.

"You sure? I didn't pass out."

"Here," said Allisande, who had just come from the kitchen. She carried in her hands a damp cloth, which she held out for Hoggle to take.

"She was in there much longer than you were, so she'll need more time to recover." Gaheris told Hoggle, who was dabbing Sarah's damp face with the cloth.

"How long? I fell asleep."

"Three hours."

Hoggle glanced up at the fae, the whites of his eyes gleaming yellow in the lamplight. "Three hours? Three bloody hours!"

"Aye. She walked out on her own, so she's done quite well."

"Mmm…" Sarah groaned, moving her head from side to side. Hoggle's head snapped back in her direction, and he placed the cloth on her forehead and waited for her to come around.

"I'll bring her a drink." Allisande said quietly, touching Sharee's and Gaheris's arms on the way out; Gaheris immediately followed, but Sharee didn't get the hint until her cousin hissed her name. Gaheris waited just out of sight, far enough away to give them some time to talk freely, but near enough to hear if something was wrong; if Sarah got up before it was wise to do so, she could fall. If she hit her head, she might need immediate healing. Such things had happened before.

Hoggle leaned against the sturdy wooden coffee table, and played with one of the trinkets on his belt, a tiny wooden hand. He was still pretty tired, but for once Sarah had come out of something in worse shape than him. Gaheris had said she would be all right, but he would believe it when she woke up and spoke to him. Then he would be able to tell.

Hoggle picked at the little sculpture with his thumbnail, and noticed that the tiny 'click-click-click' noise had gotten Eleanor's attention. The cat jumped up on the couch, and stared fixedly at the source of the sound. Hoggle stopped picking, and returned the cat's stare, blue eyes meeting green. "G'won…" he told her quietly, making a shooing motion with his hand; the cat was crouching on Sarah's stomach, and because she was so big with kittens that didn't sit well with Hoggle. Supposing she was too heavy to be sitting on Sarah's stomach like that?

"Mowww." She complained, batting his hand gently away in negation.

"Shoo!" he said louder, and the cat sat up primly and gave him a challenging look.

"Mrruh!" she grunted.

Hoggle crossed his arms and frowned, nonplused by her strange behavior. He definitely didn't want to start something with her, since he was wearing the proof of what cats are capable of on his arms, but how could he get her to move?

The cat was staring at the hand sculpture again. The dwarf frowned again, and removed the 'toy' from his clothing. "This whatcha want, Ellie? Hmm?" he asked, holding it up for her to see. "This whatcha want, girl?"

Her eyes widened as she batted at the toy, and he let her take it. "Meeee!" she trilled, catching it in her teeth and making off with it. Hoggle shook his head as he watched her leave with her prize, laughing quietly.

"Playing with the kitty?" Sarah asked, stifling a giggle, and Hoggle nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Wha—No! That is, I…how much did ya see? How ya feelin'?" he stammered.

Sarah smiled, shaking her head. "I saw enough, and I'm fine."

"You sure? I mean, I was pretty tired when I come outta that room, but what's-'is'name had ta carry you down."

"Gaheris." Sarah corrected him absently, taking the damp cloth off her forehead.

"Right, Gaheris. Sounds a bit like Jareth, that's what messed me up. But ya didn't answer me. You sure, or not?"

"I'm sure. I'm just tired, that's all. I think…I think I know what to do now."

"What?"

Sarah's forehead creased a bit as she tried to find the right words, but it was hard. She knew how she had come into her full powers, but she couldn't figure out how to explain it to him. Instead, she just said, "Let's just say, I understand more about what's going on with me. I can control the magic."

The dwarf's complexion lightened significantly, but he only nodded. She knew he didn't trust the fae magic, but he had asked. It wasn't her fault this had happened, it was Jareth's. But she still cared for him. Hoggle didn't understand it. There were a lot of things Hoggle didn't understand, but none bothered him so much as this one. Whether the Goblin King treated her well or not, it would be a difficult situation at best; Sarah's father and stepmother would undoubtedly be very angry and hurt, and Hoggle didn't know how it would affect his friendship with her. Even so, there was nothing he could do but support her…either that, or turn his back.

"Did the Chamber help you?" she asked him, having noted his thoughtful expression.

"Mmm." He nodded. "I thinks I knows what ta do, too. I…I pushed the dreams out of me somehow. I can't explain it, but I knows how to do it now. I can make the dreams come or go."

Sarah nodded slowly. "I think we'll beat this thing."