- chapter.14.just.something.we.do -
Jareth felt shuddery and empty. She had run from him. He'd opened himself up utterly, shown her his bared soul, and she'd rejected him and run from him.
A few days before, Jareth would have flown into a rage. But Sarah had changed him, despite his belief that he was what he was. He felt drained, not angry.
He raised a heavy hand, making a quick gesture, and instantly the glamour fell from the goblins and the ballroom, leaving behind the last crashing note from the music that had just been rising to a new song. The goblins, sensing a foreboding tremble in the air, scattered like mice, leaving Jareth alone in the empty, echoing ballroom.
She had run from him.
Slowly, Jareth gathered himself up. He was not angry, but he was also not defeated--Sarah hadn't been ready for the kiss, that was all that had troubled her. She had run because she had panicked. It was not rejection of him, but a rejection of the fear that had washed over her when she'd realized how much he loved her. She would be more accepting of him now, after having had a few moments to calm herself and gather her thoughts.
Jareth straightened himself slowly, pushing down the aching emptiness in his chest. Having Sarah with him for the last four days had opened him up to his feelings more than anything else in his long life ever had. He couldn't picture what would happen to him if she rejected him again, crushing their fledgling friendship.
She won't, Jareth thought, rubbing a hand over his face as if to wipe away his doubts. She will begin to love me soon... we are so terribly right for one another. She will see it... and love me.
But he was afraid. He had been rejected by girls before, but he'd not loved any of those girls. They'd been mere distractions to him, passing amusements. He had played with them until he'd grown weary of them, and then tossed them away. He'd never felt even a fraction for them of what he felt for Sarah.
I barely felt anything at all back then, Jareth thought, gazing around him at the empty ballroom. I didn't begin to feel until I saw Sarah. She... opened me, like a key in a lock so old it had forgotten what it's use was.
Jareth sighed. When he'd first met Sarah, he'd often wondered if she were the reason he had been created. He'd never fit in until he found the Labyrinth, but even in the Labyrinth he had been alone. He had felt as if some intrinsic part of himself were missing, and had sought to fill the emptiness with cruelty. At first, he had been amused by the young people he destroyed... but eventually it began to bore him, as all things bored him. But when he saw Sarah, everything began to make sense to him.
She doesn't belong in her world any more than I belonged in mine. She's too innocent and fey to fit into humanity, but too tainted to belong in the Angelic realms. She is the pure light to my corrupt darkness. Jareth groaned, shaking his head, throwing the thoughts away from him.
"She's had some time to herself," he murmured softly. "She'll be calmer now."
Jareth left behind the ballroom, the clack of his boot heels echoing emptily in the background.
Sarah had almost torn the ball dress from herself when she reached her room. She flung the shimmering, gauzy material to the floor, grabbing her own plain white Renaissance dress from the back of the chair at the vanity table where it waited almost patiently for her. She pulled it on and kicked away the shoes encrusted with blue stones, shoving her feet into her loafers. Tears were coursing down her cheeks, and she felt completely miserable.
She didn't want to leave.
She had realized it as she'd been kissing Jareth--and she didn't hesitate to admit to herself that she had been kissing him. It was not at all a one-sided kiss. She had even... enjoyed it.
"But I can't stay," Sarah sobbed, dragging her soft sleeve over her eyes to wipe away the tears. New ones immediately rose in her eyes, taking the places of those she'd wiped away.
Sarah heard a soft knock on her door, and straightened, wiping her eyes again. She knew who it was--who else but Jareth would now be tapping on her door?
"Come in." Her voice wavered only slightly, and she was proud of herself for not breaking into new sobs as he slowly opened the door, still dressed in his finery from the ball.
"I surprised you with the kiss," Jareth said softly, getting straight to the point. "I want to apologize for that. I never wanted to hurt you, Sarah. The ball, the kiss, the dress... it's all been to show you that I love you, to make you see that I mean it when I tell you that you're all I've desired for years. I want to make you happy, Sarah. That's all I desired when I brought you here--an end to my misery, and the beginning of a new life for both of us."
Sarah choked, trying to hold back a sob, and new tears spilled down her face. He was in pain, and she couldn't stand to see him in pain--not anymore.
At the sight of her tears, Jareth's calm collapsed. His face twisted, and he stepped toward her quickly, making an involuntary noise of anguish, his fingers clumsy for the first time Sarah had known them to be as they wiped the tears from her face.
"Please, don't," Jareth gasped, his voice a ragged whisper. "If there is anything I can give you that would make this pain in you stop, I will give it to you now. Ask anything of me, Sarah, and if it's in my power to give it to you, I will."
Sarah felt new tears gathering in her eyes as she gazed up into his face, which was more open then she'd ever seen it before. All his defenses were gone, and he looked so beautiful to her then. His love for her was not just a part of him, but it was what he was. He literally shone with love for her, his eyes luminescent as he gazed at her. It was the very beauty of him that gave Sarah courage.
I don't deserve him, she thought, staring up into his face, so beautiful with love for her.
"I ask for my freedom," Sarah said softly. "I ask to go home to my family, where I belong."
Pain welled up slowly in Jareth's face, destroying the sparkling of love in his eyes. His expression seemed to collapse in on itself, and the fingers on Sarah's face went cold. Then, slowly, his face seemed to wall up again, closing her out.
"You ask me to send you home, Sarah. I cannot keep you here, not when I have promised to give you whatever you wished for. I will reverse time for your family... you will be home when you father and step-mother return from visiting your grandparents four days ago. All will be as it should be." He looked at her, raising a slim hand fleetingly to brush his bare fingertips over her lips. "All will be as it should be." He leaned down, his lips replacing his fingertips.
His first kiss in the ballroom had been like heat. It had made Sarah's head spin and sent her heart pounding wildly against her breast. It had felt uncontrollably passionate, like liquid fire in her veins. This second kiss was so chaste, just the barest tremble of Jareth's lips against her own. The anguish in this kiss made Sarah want to jerk back and scream, "I changed my mind! Please, don't send me away!" but a wild, thrashing wind had surrounded her. She could no longer feel Jareth near her.
"Jareth!" she screamed, flinging her arms out desperately, but there was nothing but a whirling darkness. She could feel her consciousness slipping from her, and very dimly she thought she heard Jareth whisper through the lashing wind, "I will be watching you always..." Then, the darkness claimed her, and Sarah knew no more.