I'll have to do this every other chapter or so, but once again, thanks to: terrie (just curious, where are you from?), Emer, Solea (glad I can make your mornings better), Jenny, Addie, Winter, Silver Space, and Sway (And I'll answer your two questions- I can't tell you why Jareth brought Sarah back yet, and you'll have to read to find out why she's younger.)

*Assumes college-professor lecturing voice* And lastly, to Xelena; you remarked that Heather does not look anything like Sarah, but remember- she's her granddaughter. She only has ¼ of her DNA. As far as her having blonde hair, no, it wasn't from Jake. I don't really mention him, but her blonde hair is a naturally occurring thing.

Sarah has two dominant genes (DD) for brown hair, and Jake has a dominant and a recessive (Dd). Any one dominant gene will make you have brown hair. Dawn would have gotten the dom-rec (Dd) because she has brown hair, and when she had Heather, the father was a dom-rec (Dd) also. Heather inherited the two dominant genes (a one in four possibility), and tada! Blonde hair from two predominantly dark haired parents. *Phew.* *Steps down off my soapbox.*

Alright, without further ado, here's the next chapter, and don't worry, it's much longer than the last one. (Finger cramp, finger cramp!!) Hope you guys like it.

Andrea

            Chapter 5: Mirror mirror on the wall, and one more problem.

            The bright light streamed in the bedroom window, bothering neither of the rooms' occupants; one was sleeping, the other, lost in thought. Again, the plush chair sat a few inches from the bed, and from it a pair of mismatched blue eyes watched the girl. She stirred slightly in her sleep, then quieted again, her breathing slow and regular.

            Warm hands brushed a bit of hair out of her face and tucked the strands behind her ear. She stirred again and her eyes opened a sliver, then quickly squinted shut against the bright light in the room.

            "Where am…" she started asking, groggily.

            "Shh… You are here. You are safe." The warm hands pulled away from her face and she saw a figure, darkly silhouetted against the light, move to the window and draw the curtains.

            Sarah covered her face with her hands, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. After a minute, she pulled her hand away. She noticed the scar on the back of her hand ached a bit, though she didn't know why.

            Wait a minute… that scar had disappeared earlier. Why was it back? And why did it hurt?

            She shook her hand as if that would make it feel better, and examined the scar. It was pink, as if it had healed recently, but was still tender to the touch and had not yet begun to fade… Interesting.

            She still wore the white shirt and pants she'd had on so she couldn't have slept that long. She looked to the window. The sunlight was very bright, and judging from the angle, it was probably no later than two pm.

             She finally looked around and found the blonde haired man sitting on the same chair from earlier, though this time he was at least sitting in it, not on top of it. She gave him a perplexed look, and glanced about the room. This obviously wasn't her room, so where was sh…

            Ooh… she gasped.

            She remembered suddenly, and sat straight up, recoiling towards the edge of the bed, away from the man.

            "Get out!" she screamed. He'd caused her enough heartache and pain over the years; she certainly didn't want to see him, whether or not she was in his house.

            He arched an eyebrow in surprise. "Oh, you remember me again?" He looked at how precariously close she was to the edge of the bed, and shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. I thought by now you would have trusted me."

            Why did he have to be so antagonistic? Why couldn't he just leave her alone? She held her hand to her stomach. The scar tissue on her palm had been painfully stretched when she'd moved to the edge of the bed so quickly.

            In a heartbeat, Jareth was at her side, took her hand in his gloved one, and inspected it.

            "Oww!" She yelled when he prodded the wound too hard. "It's still tender." She tried to pull her hand back from his grasp, but he still held it too tightly. He looked up from the scar and found her eyes.

            "How did you injure your hand?"

            Sarah paused. Lord, you could get lost in that man's eyes… She shook her head. Where did that come from?

            "A neighbor's cat scratched me when I was thirty-six or so." She scrunched her face up. "Why?"

            He mumbled something incoherently, then more clearly, "damn."

            Though her memory wasn't as good as it used to be, Sarah couldn't recall ever seeing Jareth with a troubled look on his face.

            "What's wrong?"

            He glanced up at her then focused again on her hand. He remained silent as he began moving his fingertips carefully over the sore skin, gently and rhythmically massaging the area.

            Sarah felt the tenseness lessen and the pain disappear as he finished his ministrations.

            "There." He said, and relinquished her hand. "That takes care of one problem."

            She looked down at her hand. The pain was completely gone, and a small, almost crescent-shaped, pale mark had replaced the scar. She looked back up at Jareth. He was staring off at a corner of the room, deep in thought.

            Jareth frowned. At some point after she'd fainted, while she was sleeping, the scar on her hand had appeared. What bothered him was the fact that it shouldn't have- when he'd brought her to the Underground, his spell should have stopped her from aging past thirty…

            He distantly heard her asking a question.

            "I'm sorry?" He turned to face her. He had really been lost in thought.

            "I asked what the other problem was." He didn't say anything so she continued. "I think you said," she scrunched her face up slightly, and repeated, "'There, that takes care of one problem.'"

            He nodded his understanding and standing up, held out one hand towards her.

            She looked at it as if it was a poisonous snake that would strike at any second.

            He sighed and held out his hand again. "You wish to know what the problem is, correct?" She nodded. "Then you must come with me."

            She'd been asleep twice now, with him in the room, and he had not done anything. Hopefully that was a good sign; he wasn't planning on dropping her into an oubliette or something.

            She made a face, then resolutely put her hand in his. "Alright."

            *****

            The trip he took her on, surprisingly, was short. Out of the bedroom, down a hallway and around a couple corners, and to another room. He opened the door to a dark room and motioned for her to enter first.

            She peered in the doorway, trying to discern what was inside, until Jareth cleared his throat. She looked at him, a touch annoyed, then walked inside a few feet.

            Jareth entered the room after her and closed the door behind him, plunging them in complete darkness.

            Sarah held still- she didn't know what was in this room and didn't want to trip over anything- and closed her eyes to let them adjust quicker.

            With her eyes closed, she depended more on her other senses. She heard Jareth doing something with a small metallic object, and felt the air stir as he walked by her. He obviously knew this room well enough; it seemed like he didn't even need a light to see by.

            Jareth lifted the crescent-shaped pendant from his neck and pulled it over his head. He walked past Sarah, where she stood with her eyes closed for some reason, and strode to the large, free-standing mirror in the corner of the room.

            Sarah, deciding she'd given her eyes enough time to adjust, opened them. She had a moment of panic when she found she still couldn't see anything, but Jareth reassured her.

            "This is a storage room. Many of the items in here are damaged by excess light, so there is a spell to keep this room dark, until I perform a rather lengthy spell to counter it." He laughed softly. "Just give me a minute and I'll have some light. I don't need it, but I'd forgotten how poor a mortal's vision is."

            He carefully placed his pendant in the similarly-shaped, recessed area of the mirror, and turned it. A faint blue glow appeared in the center of the mirror, just bright enough for Sarah to make out Jareth's features in the ethereal light. He seemed even paler than normal; almost sickly looking.

            Jareth put his hands on Sarah's shoulders and positioned her in front of him, facing the mirror.

            "Show this girl what should not be," he said clearly, his accent emphasized on 'girl.'

            The mirror flashed, blinding Sarah with its dazzling blue light. She jumped and covered her eyes. Was it supposed to do that?

            She felt Jareth's fingers squeeze her shoulders gently. "It's alright," he said. "Look."

            Sarah brought her hands down and looked at the mirror. It showed her as she'd seen herself earlier in the bedroom mirror; slender, skinny, and young. About twenty-five, she'd guessed.

            "This was how you looked this morning," she heard Jareth saying.

            The mirror flashed again; now it showed her around age thirty-five. She was no longer quite as slender, and the scar on her hand was gone, but a crescent-shaped mark replaced it.

            "At lunch…"

            Another flash, quicker. Sarah had gray hair and a fuller figure. Another crescent shape appeared on her pinky- she'd had a tumor removed at fifty.

            "How you will look in a short while…"

            The mirror flashed again, even faster and brighter than before. Sarah's hair became thinner and wrinkles appeared on her face. It flashed again, brighter this time.

            Like a strobe light she couldn't tear her eyes from, Sarah watched herself age from twenty-five to eighty in the space of a few heartbeats.

            Sarah let out a scream and covered her face from the sight.

            "Enough!" At Jareth's command, the mirror went dormant and plunged the room into darkness once again. His hands still rested on Sarah's shoulders, and he could feel her shaking uncontrollably through the contact.

            Jareth wrapped both arms around her and pulled her closer to him. For Sarah to see herself wasting away before her very eyes, to see her youthful beauty and vitality wither away to dust…He couldn't imagine what it was like to come face to face with your own mortality; to know that one day you will simply stop existing.

            Gradually he felt Sarah's trembling lessen, then stop altogether. He brought one hand up and brushed a lock of hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear. He bent his head forward slightly and softly whispered in her ear.

            "Now do you see my problem, dear girl?"

            She nodded, then pulled away from his embrace.

            She'd been almost eighty-three that morning, so why did it shock her to see herself aging in the mirror? It was a miracle she was young right now…

            No, she thought, and turned around. It wasn't a miracle… It was Jareth.

            But why? Why would he bring her to his castle, attempt to make her permanently young again, only to fail, then tell her she'd have to make a life-changing decision?

            A flicker of light briefly lit the room, almost went out, then steadied and regained brightness. Jareth held a small crystal in his hand.

            He brought his pendant over his head and back to its rightful place against his bare chest, then held the crystal out to Sarah and placed it in her hand.

            "You may need this." He looked up from the crystal to Sarah.

            "If you need light, it will glow for you. If you wish to see something, it will show you."

            It will show you your dreams…

            "All you need do is ask," Jareth finished saying.

            Sarah's eyes were unfocused, as if she were thinking about something. She looked back up at Jareth.

            "Can I ask you something?"

            Jareth nodded. "Of course you can, Sarah."

            She remained silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase her question. There was no good way to do so.

            She looked at the crystal in her hand again, and the now crescent-shaped scar on her palm.

            "Why?" she finally blurted out.

            Jareth misunderstood her. "You see, it all has to do with the magic of myself and the land." Sarah looked confused. "Well, as king, I draw power from the land, and transfer it to my crystals. That way, they will glow or…"

            Sarah shook her head and interrupted. "No, no. I mean…" she cut her words off and looked down at her hand again.

            Jareth had learned long ago that Sarah was not a woman you push. He waited, silent, for her to continue.

            Why did he do it? Sarah wondered. Did he only wish to exact his revenge on her? Make her run the Labyrinth again? But how could he? Toby was dead.

            She gasped and her eyes went wide. He'd take Heather and make Sarah save her this time! She looked up at Jareth with malice in her eyes.

            "Don't you dare hurt my family!" she yelled, backing away from him. "Don't you dare!" She suddenly grabbed her hand and cried out in pain. Her pinky hurt very badly. She didn't need to look in the mirror to know that her face had a few more wrinkles and her hair was a little grayer. She was now fifty.

            As before, Jareth was at her side in an instant, and took her hand in his. This time however, Sarah wrestled her hand away from him.

            "No!" she said, and backed away from him again, towards a corner of the room. "You're not hurting me or my family anymore!" Her eyes were frightened. "You've done enough to us!" She sobbed and turned her back to him.

            Jareth didn't know what prompted that outburst, but he had to stop any doubts she had now. Fear tended to grow and fester into something more.

            "Sarah, what's in the past I cannot change," he said calmly and quietly, "but since you've been here, I have done nothing to harm you or your family." Sarah didn't move. He sighed.

            "Sarah, I've healed your hand once already for you," he saw her head dip as she looked at the new scar, "and I must heal your pinky now. At the rate you're aging, it's best to take that tumor out now before it becomes something worse."

            Sarah slowly turned around to face him. Wet streaks ran down her face from where she'd been crying.

            "You swear you won't hurt my family." She demanded.

            Would this mortal woman ever trust him? Jareth wondered, but was careful not to show annoyance.

            "I swear on my honor as King," he said formally and placed his hand over his pendant, "that I will not harm yourself or your family." He dropped the formality. "Sarah, it was never my intention in bringing you here to hurt you." He shook his head. "Never."

            Sarah wiped the tears from her cheeks.

            "Alright…" she said sullenly and looked down at her hand.

            Jareth wasn't going to make her ask. "May I see your hand now, please?" he held out his own towards her. "Then we can talk."

            Sarah slowly nodded, and meeting his eyes, placed her hand in his. He carefully massaged her hand again, and paused when she jumped.

            "It hurts a little bit," she lied. Actually, it hurt like hell, though it wasn't Jareth's fault. The surgery she'd had hurt worse. "Keep going. It's ok."

            He nodded and continued, his fingers moving even more gently over her skin than before. After a few minutes, he was done, and emblazoned on Sarah's skin was another crescent-shaped scar.

            Sarah met Jareth's eyes, blushed, and looked away. "Thank you," she murmured.

            "You're welcome," he replied, pleased by her manners and curious as to what caused her to blush. After a few moments, when Sarah said nothing more, Jareth spoke again.

            "Would you like to hear me out now?" he asked.

            Sarah looked back up at him and nodded.

            "Yes," she said. "I'm very curious as to why I'm here. Again."

            Jareth nodded and held out an arm.

            "Shall we?"

            She placed her hand on his arm lightly, without any hesitation, and accepted his offer.

            "We shall," she replied and laughed softly.

            As Jareth led her to the door, Sarah held out the crystal he'd given her to see by.

            "Now, you must remember- this is a big decision and not one to be taken lightly," he told her. "I do not want an answer right away… I want you to take your time and think about it."

            He opened the door and let her exit first, then followed her out.

            "Mainly, Sarah, I've brought you here to…"

            He shut the door behind him, cutting off his words and plunging the room into darkness once again.

            *****

Agh… don't yell at me! I know it's a cliffhanger, but I  promise, next chapter you'll find out why Jareth has brought her to the castle!