Disclaimer: I do not own or stake any claim to the Labyrinth or any of its characters, nope not one bit of it. They belong to the Henson Company.

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Love between the stars

His subjects caught wind of what had befallen their king, and to them this was a travesty. It was their influence behind the intent of her words, and the words themselves, but neither of them would ever become aware of this betrayal.

Life was not fair, not even dreams. Her dream would not bow to her will nor would she to his. They were at an impasse. Of the countless ways their story could play out, it nonetheless did.

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His pride would have kept him away, but love can make a fool of even the most hardhearted. Sarah saw him at her window that night. She knew it was Jareth, and she watched him as he watched her. From the moment of his arrival until she drifted off their eyes remained locked, their gazes fixed with a ferocity that stung their hearts. And he came the next and every night thereafter. Each night as she met his gaze something within her refused to relinquish it. As they were bound by each other's eyes a myriad of emotions flowed between them: frustration, wariness, awe most assuredly, pleading, hope, comfort, and yet a strange and bitter sadness, such a sad, sad love. Periodically you could see her mouth gasp gently and the battle of tears fought within her eyes. The agony of their love.

And so now for her it began as a dumb fascination, which became a comfort, then a need. The silence between them in these late hours could have been deafening to the spectator, but they lived and breathed in these hours. Their love was undeniable, yet denied.

It was in this manner they could be together, though only this. This would someday be different, if only they knew, but for the present it had to be so. She would see him alight on the branch nearest the glass as she dimmed the lights in her room each evening, his feathers a pale sapphire in the glow of the starlight. At some point she had moved her bed so she could look out to him as she lay.

Jareth would stay, sometimes till the sky turned golden with the dawn, though always until he safely saw her drift off. Sarah couldn't sleep without his presence, though she remained unaware of this fact and would no doubt deny such a thing if asked about it. Some nights he stayed just long enough to catch her lips betray her dreams. It was in these moments, unabashedly and unmistakably, and without pretense that he knew her dream flourished within her. But her lips would say, "...not yet..."

Oh the sight it must have been! But who could have known? A girl so transfixed on a silly bird. The dreamer she held captive within her could still see the man where others merely saw an owl. These were precious times, these evenings they shared, a valentine for every dream-filled night. Such things had to be so.

He couldn't deny her these evenings, these trials. The story has already been told, for our Goblin King had fallen in love with this silly girl long before. His arrogant denial might have been his defense, but his actions told otherwise. Jareth would say that such things like persistence are beneath him. Arrogance was not patient and clearly this was patience.

Sarah yet denied their hearts, instead relegating their unspoken bond to the cover of night. Between the stars, she thought of it, though certainly not what he had meant for it to be.

. . .

Six years! Six years this continued and she denied the dreamer and her dreams. So it came one night that he denied her. Sarah's first evening alone, he didn't come to her window. That night she'd waited and waited, the day slowly awakening around her but still she waited.

Now it must be said that no one is quite certain how time passes in the Labyrinth, though it does pass differently there. Not linear as we know it, yet with a peculiar order. Much as the sea in its harmonious turbulence, various currents going this way and that, yet it all flows as one, marching in unison and even still parallel to our own. However you measure it, for him six years felt like an eternity. He had been generous up till now. Something or someone had to give, and so after six years he denied her. And so his languid flights resumed. Boredom, he claimed once again, but we (and even he) knew better. He was searching for hope against hope, impossible odds. It had to be so.