"Sarah" he whispered brokenly. She struggled for breath. The rest had seemed so easy, but this, this wasn't right.

"Jareth" she choked out, barley able to hear herself. "You…"

"Shh." He said, madly calm. "You'll be alright."

"It's such…such…a nice…dream…this."

"It's not a dream!" he was panicked now. To late he summoned his magic to replenish the blood that was so crimson on his pale skin. To late he tried to heal her wounds. /He never should have left her!/ He rocked her body and crooned.

"How you've turned my world, you precious thing

You starve and near exhaust me

Everything I've done I've done for you"

*/I /should/ have tried harder. I /should/ have just taken you!/*

"I move the stars for no one

You've run so long

You've run so far

Your eyes can be so cruel"

/Glassy and milky, staring endlessly./ */I'll shut them for you, my sweet. You can't sleep and dream if your eyes are open./*

"Just as I can be so cruel"

*/If I had taken you, this wouldn't have happened./*

"Though I do believe in you"

*/ Sleep and dream. Dance with me. You'll wake in the morning./*

"Yes I do"

"Live without the sunlight

Live without your heart beat"

*/ You still love me? Don't you. The sky weeps./*

"I, I can't live within you

I can't live within you"

*/You where always to stubborn. I'll show you when you wake. You'll love me./*

"I, I can[t live within you"

*/ YOU HAVE TO!/*

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The Goblins found their strong monarch curled naked around what was to them dead meat. Drying, clotting, brown blood stained the bed and him. Crazed red eyes snapped up to meet them.

"She needs some clothes... Get some!" he snapped. He crouched on his bed and screamed at them "Well? Move! NOW!" They scrabbled over each other in their haste to get away from his insanity.

"Your mine." He murmured lovingly to the corpse, possessively. "MINE!" he crouched back down by her. "No one can take you away. You'll stay with me. Never leave me again." The cracked whisper fell from parched lips. "I love you..."

He so gently drifted off, frozen to her cold body. He dreamed of the free stars in the sky, the moon, where his love was. Where he was within. He dreamed of dancing, where love couldn't be denied and life was /right/.

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In his dark castle, on the Eastern Borders the Dark Ones grinned. Her death with his insanity to flavour tasted so sweet. They massed on the edge and swarmed in. He would be an easy, juicy kill, Jareth and his kingdom. The mortal hadn't needed much prompting. That /Goblin King/ couldn't put up a fight.

They swarmed like a hive of bees around the castle, terminating the sun, filling the Labyrinth with their murk and dirt. They sealed the windows, blocked any exits making the air thick with perpetual moving and whining that strained the eye. The dry, rotten leather of their wings contrasted with the rotten fluids of their skulls and endless grasping hands.

When they entered Jareths' chambers, relishing its taint of decay, the body fluids of the women seeping into the sheets, it's putrid stains on the silk for eternity the stains on his body for ever in his mind. He barred his pointy teeth at them and hissed.

They laughed at him, in glee and disappointment that he wasn't completely gone. He didn't heed or care about his subjects' demise.

COME, YOU ARE ONE OF US.

"No...But I will join you." His insanity surfaced and cooled, frozen solid. Nothing could be seen in the depths.

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I had no idea that was going to happen. Who wants the "She Lives version?" Review and let me know!