She opened one eye, saw there was a body lying on the floor, closed her eye back up, and calmly remarked, "I hope you can hear me. You'll find something to wear two doors down from me. It'll do until I can get you something better."
A warm presence brushed past her legs and she could hear the cabinet door being opened, the drawer pulled out, and the contents discovered.
"Ugh, miss.....I don't see anything suitable." A slightly accented male voice spoke close to her ear.
She sighed. "You'll have to hunt through that drawer. I am temporarily unable to move."
He moved back. She could hear him rustling through the contents and rejecting them one by one as he tossed them in her direction.
"Too small." toss
"Too small." toss
"Too small." toss
"Too small." toss
"Too small and too frilly." toss
"Almost decent, but exposes more than I want to under these circumstances." toss
"Ghastly color, how can anyone stand to wear this?" toss
"I do NOT look good in stripes!" toss
There was a sudden cessation of movement. Then...
"Miss, I've come to the bottom of the drawer, and there is nothing here."
Katie grimaced. "I agree there isn't much choice, but you cannot wander around the house stark naked and I simply do not have enough energy to find something else. Put the wraparound apron on, and then choose between the housecoats. I can guarantee the stripes will look better on you than one you referred to as being of a ghastly color. And....." she paused before finishing, "tell me once you have something on."
A few minutes later
"I'm as decent as I can be with what you have available." he grumped.
"Good. Now, could you please do one small favor for me? Get me a couple of sugar cubes? They should be up in the cabinet across from me, and I'll need a little bit of salt dissolved in some water." she asked, her voice barely coherent.
She could hear him move about the kitchen, but she didn't dare open her eyes as everything was swirling about her. There was a muffled yelp, but she couldn't focus long enough to inquire into the matter.
He sat down next to her, poked a couple of sugar cubes into her mouth, waited until she swallowed, then helped guide the glass to her mouth so she could take a few sips of the lightly salted water.
Finally Katie opened her eyes and looked him directly in the eyes. "I thank you for your patience," she began to say, then noticed he wasn't looking particularly well. She slowly pulled herself up, glanced at the cabinet where he'd gotten the sugar cubes from and realized something.
"Oh dear! I must apologize to you, Jareth, King of the Goblins. I forgot the kitchen had been remodeled recently and all the upper cabinet handles were changed to iron pulls."
Carefully she reached for her pet aloe vera plant, ripped off a leaf, gashed it open, placed it across the blister and wrapped one of the discarded aprons around his hand to hold it in place. A bit of a smile briefly tilted the corners of her mouth, then she skewed them back into a sober position.
He gestured weakly. "You find my wound funny?"
"Oh no........far from it." She smirked. "It just occurred to me that that particular apron makes a far better wound wrap than a body one. Of course, if my mother hadn't gotten rid of the other black one, the electric blue one, or the two hot pink ones...... replacing them with something more suitable for actual work, you might have been dressed a bit differently." Her smile broadened, she snickered, then cleared her throat and apologized when he looked at her sternly.
"I'm sorry....plain sugar always goes straight to my head and you couldn't know the former occupants of that drawer were quite a bit more frothy. Of course you can't find anything funny right now, after being stuck in that globe almost twenty years and were facing certain destruction." She sighed, finally coming down from her intense sugar high. "Sit down, you must be hungry. After we eat, I'll go rummage through Terry's clothes, unless he thaws out in the next 15 minutes."
Jareth looked towards the doorway to find it blocked by a statue which hadn't been there before. "What is wrong with him?"
Katie grabbed three plates, three sets of utensils, and set the table. "Shock. I think he recognizes you from when he was little and never expected to see you again, especially not here."
He frowned. "I've never been here in all the days of my existence, and I certainly don't recognize him." He sat down facing the doorway, still with an immense frown on his face.
She grimaced. "I wouldn't stake anything on it." she muttered softly under her breath. *Well, I'd better see if I can snap Terry out of it.*
Walking up to Terry, who wasn't even blinking an eye, and she was afraid he wasn't breathing, she snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Terry.....Terry!" she softly called.
When that didn't work she tried again, this time louder. "Terry.....oh, Terry.....Terry! TERRY WAKE UP!!!"
Still nothing happened. She knew there was no other way. "TOBY....Toby...come out, you're home safe and sound. I'll protect you."
Terry blinked and shook his head. "Katie, I was having the weirdest daymare....why did you just call me Toby? I thought you didn't like that name...." His voice trailed off and he pointed a shaking finger at the man sitting down at the table, who was now staring back hard at the two of them.
She glanced in the hallway behind him and noticed bags of stuff. "Oooooh, you read my mind. Chinese! Beef and broccoli, Kung Pao chicken, Sesame Chicken, sweet and sour plum sauce, wontons, did you get....here they are, cream cheese stuffed wontons, egg rolls....wow." She stuck everything back in the bags and carried them to the table.
Jareth stared at the young man in the doorway, then he turned his gaze to the young woman who had freed him from the globe. "Who...who..." he broke off, swallowed, and began again. "Who are you....and where am I?"
"That's right, you were sealed up in that thing before I came into existence." Katie snapped her fingers. "Jareth, you already know Terry, or I should call him by his full name....Terence Tobias Kellsen Williams, formerly known as Toby. I am his sister, Katherine Merry-Rose Kellsen Williams. You were acquainted with our older half-sister, Sarah Williams....whom you proceeded to drive quite batty before she hit upon a plan to get you out of her life for good. Your current location is in the kitchen of our parents' house. I don't think you've ever been in here before, or would remember it if you had, it's been remodeled at least seven times since Sarah moved out. Now, everyone sit down and eat, because I'm very hungry and I'm starting to get extremely PISSED OFF."
The last two words had come out in a loud shriek. Jareth stared even harder, Katie stared back, they both seemed almost as frozen as Terry had been in the door way. Terry rushed to the table and helped Katie into a chair, then he got out three glasses and some grape juice. "Calm down, Katie....we're sitting, we're eating, we'll talk this through later. Have some juice."
Quickly he spooned some food from each of the cartons onto her plate, added some of the rice concoction, put a fork in her hand, and carefully tilted her face away from Jareth to look down at her food. He filled a plate for Jareth, placed it before him and then waved his hands in front of Jareth's face. "Hello, Earth to Goblin King....come in Goblin King....you'd better eat something." He clapped loudly.
Finally Jareth blinked, and jumped a little. "What is wrong with her? Must she be so loud?" He winced and covered his ears with his hands.