Well, thanks to those of you who reviewed: alorindanya, Moonjava, and JESSEK! You make me feel loved! Anyway, sorry about what happened to Sarah. Don't be mad at me, this is just the way it had to be. I thought about keeping her, but that would have jeopardized the entire story. Well, looks like I've done enough rambling for now, and with that, I give you the third chapter of Graduating from the Aboveground.

Grieving

Melissa's hands began to shake and her lips started to tremble. Tears were flowing steadily down her now pale face as she thought about what the doctor had said. "What?" she whispered so that even her father, standing not three feet from her, would have had a hard time hearing it. But apparently the doctor at the foot of her bed did not.

He shook his head. "I'm very sorry. She wasn't in any pain, if that's any consolation."

She stared at the doctor even harder. Yes it was a good thing that her mother hadn't been in any pain when she died, but that didn't change the fact that she was dead. "Consolation? My mother just died, and you wondering if you can offer me any CONSOLATION!?" she hollered at the man. She was weeping by now. "It's not fair!" she sobbed. "It's just not fair!"

Jareth looked down at his sobbing daughter. She looked so much like her mother, and now he knew she sounded like her as well. He reached out and gently rubbed her forehead, stroking his thumb back and forth on it. "Shh. Calm down. It's going to be alright."

Melissa shook her head. "No. It won't be alright." She said between sobs. "She's gone. And she's not gonna come back!" With that said she flung her arms around her father's neck and sobbed into his shirt. "It just isn't fair!"

He was startled by this sudden outburst. He awkwardly hugged her and patted her back, letting her cry on his shoulder. "No. It isn't fair." He looked over to the doctor standing by the end of the hospital bed and nodded towards the door, and, deciding to let the girl's parent try to calm her down, the man left the room and silently closed the door behind him. After seeing him exit the room, Jareth pulled away from Melissa's grasp and looked to her face. Her eyes were red and her nose was running a bit. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. She graciously took it and dried her wet face before setting it down on the blanket in front of her.

Melissa shook her head, trying to imagine what life might be like without her mother. Sarah had been the constant in her life, the one thing she could always count on to be there for her. And now she was gone. She looked back up at the man standing next to her bed. He looked just as distressed as she did. "So...you're really my father?" She said, only half asking.

Jareth just nodded in response to her question and said, "I should have thought that my eyes would have given me away."

Melissa unwittingly let out a soft giggle at this. He smiled through his grim expression. "Why haven't I met you before?" she asked him, looking up at his hurt face. "Why didn't you come to see me?"

He looked away from his daughter, thinking about what he was told shortly after her birth. "It's complicated," was all he said. Seeing that he didn't want to talk about it right now, she dropped the topic. "I saw you at your graduation yesterday," he said, looking back at her.

Melissa nodded. "Yeah, I know. Mom told me that was you leaning against the car."

Jareth looked up at the clock on the wall. It was just past four. "I'd better get going now."

Melissa's head shot up to look him in the eyes once he'd said this. "No. You can't leave. I only just met you and with what happened to mom and all, well, she told me before that she couldn't wait for us to meet and I want to know why she was so anxious, and since she died you're my parent and you can't just leave me here, and...and..." she was rambling, and very quickly at that, but who could blame her after what had happened to her mother.

Jareth only looked at her with gentle eyes. "I won't be gone long. I promise I'll come back soon," he said soothingly – so soothingly in fact, that he almost didn't believe it was he who was speaking. Seeing the disbelieving look on her face, he tried again. "I promise. In fact," he conjured a crystal behind his back and pretended to have dug it out of his pocket, thinking it would be best if he didn't tell her about the magic until she was over the shock of losing her mother. "Keep this until I get back, okay?" He handed her the crystal and watched her face hold the exact same expression that her mothers had held when he had first offered her a crystal. Melissa nodded and held the crystal carefully, thinking it would break if she so much as held it too tight.

"What is it?" she asked, quite stunned at the exquisite sphere.

He smiled at her, realizing just how much like her mother she really was. "It's a crystal." He then bent down and kissed his child on her forehead before leaving the room, an awe inspired Melissa watching him as he left.

Once he had gone, Melissa just stared at the crystal in her hands. It was incredible, like nothing she had ever seen before. It reminded her of something; she just couldn't put her finger on it.

Once Jareth had returned to his castle, his rage finally came bursting through him. He marched though his throne room, his angry power giving off a warning aura about him as he kicked aside goblins to reach his study. As soon as he was there, he slammed the door tightly – not to mention loudly – behind him. He conjured crystals just to throw them at the wall and let out his rage. He stormed around the large, book filled room and let out several cries of fury as he knocked entire bookshelves to the floor until he finally sat down at the window seat, to let out the tears he'd been holding back in front of Melissa.

Hoggle, who'd been watching him practically destroy the large room from the door, carefully came out from where he was standing to stand beside Jareth. "Yer Magesty? What's wrong?"

Jareth had been startled by Hoggle's question and looked up from the palm of his hand to see the goblin looking at him with worried eyes. "She's gone," was all Jareth said as he turned his head to look upon his precious city.

Hoggle, thinking he already knew the answer, tried to get his king to elaborate. "Who's gone?"

Jareth merely shook his head again before answering, which he did, after about a moment's silence. "Sarah. She's dead, Hoggle. She died in the hospital."

Hoggle was stunned to silence; not only had Jareth finally gotten his name right, but his first and best friend had died. He shook his head and let tears roll form in his dark eyes and roll down his tanned cheeks. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? Nothing that could consol his king, that was for sure. There was only one thing he could think to ask. "What ya gonna do now, yer Magesty?"

Jareth shook his head again, thinking about his daughter, her dead mother, her betraying boyfriend, and her friends and family members who would miss her. "She'll have to come back. I'll have to bring her to the Underground."

Meanwhile, back at the Hospital...

Melissa's friends, Rachel, Tiffany, and Kelly had come to see her once again. "I can't believe he did that to you, Mel," Rachel told her once Melissa had explained about Allan. "From what I can gather," Rachel was the Queen of Gossip, she always had been, and most likely always would be. "He was at a graduation party with Lila Korkowski, someone brought a few kegs and, well, I think you can figure the rest out on your own."

Melissa nodded. She guessed that it had been something along those lines. She was still hurt by what he'd done; they had, after all, been going out for about two years now. But she knew that wasn't the only thing that had caused this pain. Her mother was dead, her father shows up only to leave again, her boyfriend cheats on her, and now she knew that she had a concussion. Her only consolation was that she'd be able to leave the hospital tomorrow to stay with her grandparents and that Jareth promised he'd come back

"Anyways," Kelly said, brushing a few of her flame red locks from her face. "You said you met your dad earlier. What was that like?"

Melissa shrugged. "It was okay, I guess. I was crying most of the time he was here so we didn't get much time to talk. I could have sworn I saw him at the accident though," she said to her querying friends. She didn't remember much about the accident, but she knew she had seen him, not even his car, just him. Noticing the silence that had befallen them, Melissa decided to show them the crystal he had let her borrow. She pulled it out from underneath the blanket where she'd been holding it gently and let them see it. "He gave me this to keep until he got back." Their eyes widened when they saw the clear, circular orb.

"What is it?" the three of them chimed.

Melissa giggled. They sounded like robots. "He said it was a crystal," she told them. Suddenly, the door opened to reveal the doctor, whose name she now knew to be Dr. Morris, came striding in. Unfortunately though, he had startled her so much that she dropped the crystal. Melissa and the other four of them just watched as it fell to the floor, each one of them expecting it to shatter. To their surprise however, it didn't. It just bounced back up on the bed and into the Melissa's palm where it had been held so preciously before.

Melissa and her friends were shocked to say the least. This crystal had seemed very fragile, and here it had just bounced back up off the floor and into her hands. Rachel, Tiffany, and Kelly were staring at it with awe, while the doctor looked confused beyond all reason. But he managed to regain himself well enough to walk over to Melissa and ask her if she was feeling alright. She told him she was feeling fine and he told her that her grandparents, her uncle, aunt, and cousins had called to check up on her and they were coming to visit her soon. She nodded in response, and as soon as he left, she returned her attention to the peculiar crystal in her hand.

Tiffany was the first to speak once Dr. Morris had left, saying, "How did it do that? I though for sure it would break."

The other two across from her nodded their agreement and Melissa just said, "I thought so too. I don't know, maybe..." she trailed off, looking for some kind of explanation. "Oh, I don't know. I'll ask him when he comes back." By "him" she meant Jareth.

A few hours later her friends left, her grandparents, Karen and Jonathan had come to see her and brought her some flowers and a "Get Well Soon" balloon. Her uncle Toby and his wife Alice had stopped by with their two year old twins, Tori and Tommy. But she didn't see her father the rest of the day.

The next morning she awoke to bright sunlight filling her room through the open window and her father sitting in the chair across from her bed, asleep. She didn't know how he'd gotten there. I thought visiting hours ended at eight on Saturdays. Shook her head of these thoughts and brought her attention to the crystal that was resting securely on the little table beside her bed. She picked it up and brought it close to her face, inspecting it for anything that could expose the reason behind its odd jump from the floor to her hands again. She was so wrapped up in thinking about the crystal that she didn't even notice Jareth waking up. He looked at her with amused eyes. She seemed to adore that crystal.

"Something interesting you Mel?" he asked. He saw her jump, obviously startled.

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah. I wanted to ask you something about this crystal." She told him once she realized that he was fully awake and watching her intently.

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment before a look of comprehension dawned on his face. "Your wondering why it did not shatter when you dropped it, am I right?"

She stared at him, open-mouthed and nodded. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

He chuckled before stating, "Let's just say I've had my fair share of crystal related experiences," he said before changing the subject. "Melissa, there was something I have been meaning to talk to you about as well." His face was suddenly serious. "Melissa, your mother left a will. We will both have to go to meet with her lawyer, along with her parents and stepbrothers family. But after that, well, I would like you to come back with me. Come to my home. You don't have to stay there if you don't wish it, but I would like for you to give it a try."

She thought about this for a moment. She had been thinking about staying with her grandparents for a while, something she still hadn't gotten around to asking them and so she didn't know if it would be alright anyway. But even if it had, there was something in her gut that told her to go with him. It would be the perfect chance to get to know her father better, plus, he had offered, so she knew she couldn't be rejected. She thought this would be the best option. "Sure, I'll give it a try." After all, if she didn't like it, she could always stay with her grandparents.

A/N: Okay, I know it's kinda boring so far, but please stay with me here. The next chapter will be better, I promise. Plus, I update almost everyday, so you can check back soon to see if the more interesting chapter is up. I just needed this one in here to link everything together. Oh, and, I thought I'd let you know, I don't exactly know what the rating for this story will be. I've got most of it mapped out in my head, but if the characters take me someplace else, so be it. Anyways, hope you liked it. Read and Review.

TTFN – ta ta for now

Sapphire925