Chapter Four

Feeling very much alone, Jareth hid himself away in the Ester room. She couldn't possibly find him in there, if, of course, she came looking for him. He wanted to cry, to scream, to pound his fists into the ground but he refrained from doing so. He would not show any signs of weakness. Not because of her.

"Jareth?" Sarah asked coming in the room. Jareth's eyes narrowed, how dare she come in here, looking for him! He gritted his teeth to refrain from turning her completely inside out. He wanted to torture her. He wanted her to feel how he felt. That deep, black pit in the middle of his stomach.

"Jareth I know your in here," she sighed "I saw you come in." He remained silent. "You have to understand," she said "I only said that because-" She stopped for a second; she was trying to justify her actions. But she didn't want to be wrong! She didn't want to admit that she made the biggest mistake of her life my leaving him there two years earlier.

How could she explain anything? How she felt about him? She couldn't say THOSE words. No. She wouldn't. But it was tempting...

"I'm sorry Jareth," she whispered letting her tears hit the floor. Her voice bounced from wall to wall and she cringed as she heard how desperate her echo sounded.

"For what?" he snapped, still hiding from her.

"I'm sorry for everything," she whispered, unable to raise her voice into its normal brave tone. "I'm sorry for what I said back there, for leaving, for hurting you."

"Who said you hurt me?" he snapped angrily.

"Well if I did," she said wiping tears away. Sarah stopped breathing when Jareth flipped over the side of the stairway. He looked as if he'd kill her, maybe worse. She was sure that the worst possible thing he could think of would be her fate.

"What do you care?" he asked, circling her "I'm nothing to you, remember?"

"I," she paused and took a deep breath "I didn't mean it."

"What's said is said," he reminded her.

"So I said it," she snapped "doesn't mean it's true." He stopped and sent her a fierce look, not sure of what to think of her.

"So you're saying I mean something to you then," he added, trying to keep from smirking, though he was still angry with her.

"If I didn't why would I come here and stick my foot in my mouth?" she asked.

"Maybe to go home?" he asked, seeing where he could go with this.

"And you know I wouldn't do that," she added, noticing that he was trying to get something out of her, a specific response.

"I do," he agreed "I don't suppose-" he started, ready to contradict everything she had said to him in the other room but she stopped him.

"Before you try to contradict everything I said before," she said, practically reading his mind "I'm going to say, so it'll cut everything short, I'm sorry. I was wrong for saying all that alright? I know that most of it was wrong, but I said it anyways. I still don't think you had the right to spy on me, but it IS your castle and I mean, you did save me so I won't go around making a big deal about it. I-"

"Why don't you ever ask me?" Jareth asked, resuming his normal cocky smile.

"Ask you what?" Sarah asked.

"For anything," he said walking closer to her "take me watching you for example, you never asked me not to watch you, you just started yelling. Maybe if you asked, I wouldn't do it." There was a long pause.

"Jareth?" Sarah said, trying hard to keep her voice from wavering "would you please not spy on me?"

"Well I don't know now, I mean, you already said you wouldn't go making a big deal about it so-" he teased.

"That's not funny," she said, crossing her arms.

"Alright fine," he sighed "I won't watch you. All you had to do was ask. And now bringing up the next topic for discussion, how about me being heartless?"

"Did I not just apologize?" she asked "must you make me go through everything I said to you?"

"No," he said "but I'm particularly interested in this."

"I have no comment on it," she said "I said sorry, that's as far as I'm going."

"You asked me not to spy on you," he said "I'm asking you to debate this with me."

"And who says I'm going to be nice and do that?" she asked.

"I'm just pointing it out," he said "considering all those hurtful things you said in your room."

"Ah," she teased "but you said I didn't hurt you."

"No," he came back "I said who said you hurt me, not that you didn't."

"Did I then?" she asked.

"Are you going to discuss what you said with me?" he asked and they both stood there, waiting for the other to sigh and give up so the other could say what they so desperately needed to say. Jareth sighed; he knew they were both to stubborn for these kinds of standoffs. Sarah did too and they both backed off a little. Jareth lowered his glare to a slight grin and Sarah relaxed a little.

"I don't think you are," she said quietly.

"You don't think I'm what?" he asked, feeling a little shocked that she was the one to give up.

"I don't think you're heartless," she admitted.

"How do you figure?" he asked. He knew this was torture for her, admitting things she'd rather hide from him, but he wanted to know.

"A lot of reasons," she said, trying to hide what she was about to admit.

"Can you give me a few?" he asked, leaving a window so she could say no and they could move on. Sarah noticed this and wondered if he knew he was giving her a way out or if he was just doing it normally. She couldn't tell if he was overly clever or if he just did things by accident.

"As much as I don't want to," she said "yes."

"Well if you don't want to," he said "then don't."

"That's why," she said smiling "right there. You do stuff like that." Jareth smiled, his anger eased down and he let out a relieved sigh. His neck hurt from all the tension and he was abnormally tired, but it was still early in the day so he tried to ignore it. Sarah's stomach growled and she coughed, trying to keep Jareth from hearing it.

"Hungry?" he asked raising an eyebrow and she gave a short nod. He conjured a peach and held it out to her. She eyed it worriedly, looking from it to Jareth.

"Maybe not so much," she lied and he smiled at her cautiousness. Though she was good at acting brave, she was still terrified of him.

"Still don't trust me?" he asked, looking hurt and giving a fake pout "aww, poor Sarah. She's scared."

"You don't scare me," she snapped, resuming her normal 'your JUST Jareth, you have no power over me' voice.

"I think you are," he added, and he tossed her the peach "and you don't trust me." Sarah was stuck. She'd either give up and show that she was scared of Jareth and that he really did have power over her, or she could put all her trust in him and eat that peach.

What-ifs flooded her head. What if he drugged it again? What if he did something worse to it this time? What if he drugged it and she couldn't get out this time? Or if she did get out, what if she couldn't ever remember anything? She waited a moment, and looked at the fruit in her hand. He wanted her to trust him, he told her that he loved her, he saved her from rape, and she'd hurt him again and again.

Sarah raised the peach to her lips and bit into it.

Author's note: Thanks for the reviews guys! You're all so much help. Sorry it took so long to post this, I had to do it on my laptop since our home computer is being dumb. So I'll only be able to post during weekdays. That's alright though, weekends I'll do a few chapters at a time so on Mondays I'll have a few new chapters up. Hope you all had a nice long weekend like I did!!

Much love,

Amber D. Lee & Goblins