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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Fooled hearts

From his now-resumed flights, he saw yet more silly girls carrying on below. None of them would ever be to him what she had become. This isn't surprising, though, because the honest reality of it was that no other could. They had been laid between the stars before either of them could imagine. That book had been for Sarah, and Sarah alone.

Of all the places in this world he could traverse, he chose to remain close to her hometown. Call it what you will. Was he frustrated, sentimental, searching, or hopeful? Jareth was a hopeless fool in love, and so there he waited, though with the pride of a king he called it something else entirely. Here, in this common park, he spent many hours of many days. It was here she first stole his breath. To him it was 'their park', though to this fact she remained unaware. He grinned inwardly at the notion.

There was a little matter to which Jareth was unaware at the moment, and that was Sarah's presence in this town.

He knew she no longer lived here, so he made little attempt to avoid her former bedroom window. He'd watched over the past two years, as what was once so dear grew faded and forgotten. For weeks after her arrival Sarah had avoided that room, and so he had no reason to suspect her sudden presence one night.

That night, an hour before the day broke he alighted on the branch for what should have been a brief glimpse, something just long enough to satisfy him for another day. This night things were different, nothing was in its place, and there she was. He secretly wished her to catch him, and that she would look upon him once more. But this wasn't the time, nor was it the place, and at her faintest stirring in her bed he flew off, though with renewed hope.

# # #

She sat on the little stone bridge in the park, the book on her lap. Sarah didn't actually need to read it or even open the cover. This was an acknowledgement of its existence, of an enormous part of her life and of her heart, of the reality of what transpired, and of him.

Overhead, she noticed a flash of white as it quickly disappeared into the trees nearby. "I watch you, too, you know," she breathed, barely a whisper.

As she settled into her thoughts, Sarah openly reflected on that fateful night for the first time since it had happened. She thought about many things, but more importantly, she thought about him. With the mind of an adult, and the heart of a dreamer, she considered his words. She had play-acted with him hundreds of times in her imagination. Of course, Sarah was always the alluring heroine, relishing the notion of the king fawning over her. To the child she was, he wasn't more than a shallow character who was there to fulfill his role, never considering the reality of him as a man of flesh and blood and a beating heart. Jareth had fulfilled her childish expectations, though now she considered the one occasion she had never play-acted. The dance. His words.

'I'll lay my love between the stars', timeless, beautiful and enduring.

"Love like that doesn't exist but in silly fairy stories," she mused aloud. But she couldn't deny she'd felt something there that night. Something powerful and inexplicable, the gravity of a love she wasn't even aware of.

Still her mind fought against the dreamer, considering the 'sensible'. Things like education, reason, careers, income, a home, a family... She shook her head at her wandering thoughts and decided she'd had enough of this silliness and headed home. Such things were all reasonable, and perfectly sound ideas. Sarah, though, couldn't bring 'ration' and 'sensible' into line with her assumption of having a family some day, the dream of him conflicted with reality. Oh, she will have her dreams. This has already been determined, but they were both oblivious. Everything has its time, and this too shall come.

Sarah returned to the park often to 'reflect' upon her childhood. This was another one of her games. She in fact came to daydream, about her adventures, the silly ways she used to carry on in this very park what felt like a lifetime ago. Every day Jareth watched her from his perch in the grove, his owl eyes catching every detail, every fleck in the emerald forest of her eyes. Not that he was interested in her eyes any longer, surely our king was beyond that. Hardly! But as we know, he truly had been generous and it was now her move. It would have to be another day, though, for this day's sun had already given way to the starlight.

# # #

The next morning Sarah grabbed a couple of textbooks, and instinctually, her little red book as well, and ran out the door. She was to spend the day in the library, immersed in sensible reason and rational thoughts. The past couple weeks had thrown her unduly off-course and the notion was unnerving. So a nice, dull, relaxing, studious day was in order. Wait, how did 'dull' get in there?

As disturbing as it may seem, Sarah insisted that this had been an incredibly delightful afternoon. The poor girl was in appalling denial. Somewhere along the walk home, though, things fell into order. The day had begun as a beautiful, crisp morning and now the air was thick with humidity and the sky overcast. Sarah, aware of the impending storm took a shortcut through the woods. As she skirted around a large pond, her gaze shifted to the lovely patterns of light dancing across the shimmering surface. Caught up in the beauty of the pond, her grip loosened and the little red book she was toting slipped from its wedge between the larger textbooks and tumbled into the water.

Without a second thought, now unaware of even the looming storm, she dropped her textbooks on the damp grass and pulled the now sopping book from the water. For Sarah, to lose this book would be to lose the dream entirely. Hoping to salvage it in some way, she examined its pages.

How could I have been so foolish? I didn't even mean to bring it with me. It's not f...

Her words were suddenly lost to her as she gasped gently in awe, her brow slightly furrowed. Something wasn't right, though. They were blank, completely and utterly blank. Not as though the water had washed the ink away, there was absolutely no trace there had ever been writing on its yellowed pages.

There was something Sarah didn't realize, though. In her reckless disregard for everything but the dream – her dream, she had made her move.

Leaving the concerns of the day behind on the grass, she made her way to the park, her park - their park.