Eager as he was to return to his Sarah before Hoggle could tell all kinds of horrible stories slandering his good name, Jareth had one thing to do first.
Moving through the time streams, he entered Sarah Williams' room at the end of her day. Already he could see changes in it. The statues that resembled Hedgwart were gone. The comforting softness of creatures made to look like his subjects was banished. Bare walls with blinding whiteness surrounded him.
Keen Fey ears detected footsteps coming closer to the door, a tread he had learned well in the week past. He chose his spot to wait for Sarah to enter, the windowseat that faced the window where he used to watch her, arranging to look bored and elegant. Yes, this Sarah was not his Sarah, and perhaps he would never again be here. But he still loved games. Almost as much as...
She opened the door, tossing a bag of books on the bed, not yet seeing him. The king let her go on for a few minutes, then just as she opened the closet as if to find something else to wear, he called out.
"Do you really want to do that?"
She cried out a bit, but not loudly enough to be heard. "You- you're.."
"Haven't we run through this before?"
His words snapped her back to reality, or her version of it. "You are a delusion," she stated flatly.
"In the habit of talking to delusions are you?" He twirled a globe or two. "You'll have to wait a bit if delusions are your preferred companions. I'm not one."
"I'm not crazy, this is all a fantasy and I recognize that," she told herself aloud.
"Fantasy am I? Hmm. Very well, I don't mind being a fantasy much. You fantasize about me?" He grinned. So far, he was winning.
Then, she decided to just ignore him, opening a book and settling down to read. It would have been more comfortable to change into sweats or something like that, but not with her delusion watching with sharp, sharp eyes.
Her delusion did not like being ignored, so he crossed the room and plucked it from her hands. "Sarah."
"Give it back," she demanded.
"If I'm not real, how can I give you anything, or how can I take anything in the first place?"
That stumped her, so she just glared at him mulishly, which was what he wanted to begin with.
He stared back, looking into those eyes that now were so different from Sarah's, his version's. He looked deeply, seeing what she was made of. A hurting child, determined to make the best of her lot that she could, though there was little hope for it to be much. Her dreams were relegated to nothing more than being a daughter and sister, things that would fade and shatter. Mentally, he looked to his Sarah, saw into her heart as well so as to compare. In ways they were the same, expectedly so. But the pieces of his Sarah that were missing were being repaired thanks to the healing he brought to her.
He reflected that enjoying her complete agreement with himself would be a wise course- it wouldn't last.
One had a valid reason to live, the other lived because the other needed her to live so she could be what she was meant to be.
Yes, that was it.
He broke her gaze when he transformed a crystal into a glass.
"Drink."
"What is it?" she asked warily, thinking peach as she looked at it.
"If I'm not real,then it is nothing and can not hurt you. And if I am real, I'd never hurt someone who looks so much like someone I care for. If it is anything, it will help you. If it is nothing, then what does it matter?"
She still hesitated.
"Are you afraid?" he goaded deliberately.
It worked, and she snatched it, drinking down the ice cold draught. It was too good to logically deny that it existed, but she needed to deny it, and his vanishing made it easier to do so.
Jareth moved out of that moment in time, then down to step back in when she slept.
"One last dream, Sarah Williams, then I will leave you. He looked down; had she been looking, she'd have seen a man carved from moonlight and shadows.
"I wonder which of you kept the phrase it's not fair?" he smiled. "If it was you, then I suppose that, for this time, you might be right. It really is not fair that you exist solely to be the this that allows that to exist, but what a glorious that it is. If all the world is a stage, then the players on it need others to move the scene along and so on. So you will be her shadow, one that will fade. That is the reason I will never look on you again. Seeing even a reflected version of the one I love so die would hurt too much. Seeing someone I do love die would hurt too much. Even though you are not her, and though I love her as much as love itself, I do love you, Sarah Williams, for without you, I could never have her. So live now. That draught that you don't believe you drank will begin to regenerate you, help you find a purpose more than just filling a gap." A captured star appeared in his hand, floating down to rest above her before sinking in. "Just a splinter of that love to live in you- so you will know the love you should have had that belongs irrevocably to another you. It will make accepting second best less painful, bearable, even something to want. Find something to believe in, Sarah that is not measured in books and logic."
With one last and first kiss, he left her, a sad spirit winging into the night, flying into a daylight that it seemed he'd only left moments before. Hoggle and Sir Didymus were silent, listening to Sarah play the piano. He stopped as well, thinking as he looked on her that she did not look at all like the girl he had just left or was it soon would leave, not if you knew the two.
The song was unfamiliar but one he liked.
I peered through windows,Watched life go by.
Dreamed of tomorrow,
But stayed inside.
The past was holding me,
Keeping life at bay.
I wandered lost in yesterday,
Wanting to fly,
But scared to try.
Then someone like you,
Found someone like me,
And suddenly nothing is the same.
My heart's taken wing,
And I feel so alive,
'Cause someone like you found me.
It's like you took my dreams,
Made each one real,
You reached inside of me,
And made me feel,
And now I see a world,
I've never seen before.
You're love has opened every door.
You've set me free,
Now I can soar.
For someone like you,
Found someone like me,
You touched my heart,
Nothing is the same.
There's a new way to live,
A new way to love,
'Cause someone like you found me.
Oh, someone like you,
Found someone like me,
And suddenly nothing is the same.
My heart's taken wing,
And I feel so alive,
'Cause someone like you loves me,
Loves me
Slowly, he applauded. She looked up, startled. "Jareth!"
Until this moment, he hadn't realized fully how it had cut to have lips that looked like hers denounce him as false, a mere phantom. The smile that rejoiced at seeing him swept that away.
"Miss me?" he teased.
"No," Hoggle snapped a heartbeat before Sarah could say, "Very much."
"But Lady Sarah has kept us well entertained, my lord," Didymus added.
"Excellent." He caught Hoggle's eye, nodding only slightly, hoping the dwarf was savvy enough to catch his meaning. The minute jerk of the dwarf's head made it a reasonable hope.
Aloud, he added, "Sarah, I looked in on your family. Toby is well as are your father and stepmother. "
"Do- do they miss me?" her voice held conflict, guilt and a touch of pain.
"They believe something that comforts them- all they know is you are well and happy, and that is enough." He smiled for her, praying she would not press the issue.
This prayer was answered with a yes, for she did not ask more, just rose and hugged him. "Thanks. I was thinking about that double rose oath you asked if I was ready to swear, and --"
"Sarah - you know that's - there's no way to go back - you'll be tied to him ferever! and ferver is a lot longer here than 'n yer world." Hoggle glared at anyone he could look at.
"No, not my world, this is my world, Hoggle. I belong here, where forever is not that long."
Hoggle hrmphed in disgusted, Didymus looked fascinated. The Oath of the Double Rose was so seldom taken that it was only legend, and so there was no formal rite or time and place for it. It bound the two swearing to each other by blood and tears and heart. It was forever and then some.
"It's what I want," Sarah finished.
"As do I," Jareth agreed. Between their joined hands a crystal formed, two roses glowing in its centre. Then it shattered, cutting their hands that now pressed together so the blood mingled, causing a light to blossom around the linked hands and a new sphere to form.
It was good.